Preamble

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Health and Safety at Work

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I beg to move,
That this House condemns the cuts in the Health and Safety Executive — cuts which involve reductions in routine inspections, in the number of accidents inspectors are able to investigate, in the number of enforcement notices that are issued and in provision for research, and which make it impossible to achieve satisfactory standards of health and safety at work; and calls on the Government to increase the resources allocated to the Health and Safety Executive to enable it to carry out its responsibility to ensure that proper and effective health and safety standards are maintained at all workplaces, and thus to put an end to the cuts that kill.
As you will see, Mr. Speaker, I have a few notes. I shall try to rush through them as quickly as possible, as a tremendous number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak on this important subject.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Of course it is important.

Mr. Skinner: Yes, it is. This is the third time that I have come out first in the ballot for private Members' motions.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman has joined the Establishment.

Mr. Skinner: It is all about luck. The first time I came first in the ballot about 11 years ago—I proposed a Socialist budget. It was pretty good and much better than the one which we had from the Chancellor of the time. I am pleased that some of my suggestions were carried out by the Labour Government. That Government could not carry all of them out because the International Monetary Fund interfered in about 1976 and stopped the Government from carrying out my budget of 1973. Circumstances then were not much different from what they are now. The pound was being defended by the workers. They were trying to stop it going down and were having to pull up their socks and tighten their belts to do so. Later they had to stop it from going up. They are now having to stop it going down again as it is at its lowest ever level.
This debate is about another vital issue which has been at the centre of trade union philosophy ever since trade unions started. Most people tend to think that trade unions are all about improving workers' wages. For those of us who come from some of the more arduous occupations such as mining, railways, docks, shipyards and the newer technologies such as the chemical industry, having to provide decent conditions is uppermost. The debate is about freedom to work and having security when at work.
The Prime Minister is always prattling on about freedoms. Today's debate is about an extremely important freedom. It also concerns the 700 people who die each year

as a result of industrial accidents. It is about the 275,000 people, on average, who suffer serious injury as a result of work. It is also about the 900 who die each year as a result of industrial diseases. They can be seen in the Welsh valleys, the coalfields and textile areas. They suffer from asbestosis and various other diseases of the lung. They can be seen leaning over walls having managed to stagger about 20 yards, their hollow chests coughing up their lungs. They are the casualties of the arduous conditions in which they have had to work. People who work in the new technologies such as the chemical-based industries sometimes have fingers that are wasting away as a result of the cancer-inducing substances with which they have worked and which have gradually permeated their bodies.
It is only recently that a Labour Government introduced industrial diseases benefits for people such as I have described and their widows. The debate is about freedom and liberties. I do not expect any support—I might yet get a bit of vocal support—from those employed in the relatively safe areas such as barristers. I am not making any representations this morning on behalf of the Inner Temple or the outer or up and down temple—whatever they call themselves. I have no doubt that occasionally someone has to see that the toilets are in order and that the carpets are thick enough for them to walk on, but if someone becomes a casualty in the law courts the Establishment or the Conservative party will not search for answers. That will always be done by the trade unions and the Labour party. It will not be done by the Social Democratic party—there is not one hon. Member from that party present — or the Liberals. I should have thought that an alliance Member would be present, because we are talking about a subject which can be used by it, and no doubt is, as one of the safe areas about which it can argue, although it will not do anything about it.
The debate is also about security at work. I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) today. He used to represent Ebbw Vale. When he was Minister for Employment, one of the measures which he and Mr. Deputy Speaker my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Mr. Walker) brought in was the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. It was an important step forward.
My right hon. Friend will accept straight away, and have to admit, that mining was not altogether happy about having to incorporate the mines and quarries inspectorate within the Health and Safety Executive. We tended to believe that we could manage the matter successfully within the industry. I shall develop that argument. Time has shown that it was probably worth while for the pits. Agriculture was not altogether happy with the idea, as the industry had its agriculture inspectorate. The same applied to shipping, which was represented by the National Union of Seamen. Shipping said, "We do not want to be brought into the ambit of the Health and Safety Executive."
I have some figures which show that, contrary to what happened in many other industries where the number of accidents declined, in shipping, accidents, deaths and serious injuries have continued to rise at an incredible rate. Last night I was shown an article from the National Union of Seamen which showed that the number of deaths in shipping per 100,000 employees is four times the rate of that in coalmining.

Mr. John Evans: Is my hon. Friend aware that there has been no progress in the


offshore oil and gas industry? That industry remains within the purview of the Department of Energy, when it should have been placed within the remit of the Health and Safety Executive. The Government should take the step by bringing safety measures to a group of workers who are often unfortunately and fatally exploited.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend will agree that one of the reasons why the new growth industries of the '60s, '70s and '80s which have been exploited by people who have obtained the cash from someone else as a result of previous exploitations do not want to be included in that they do not want interference from anyone. They want to conduct their enterprises without an inspector looking over their shoulder to see whether conditions are right for deep sea divers. That is the last thing they want. They do not want snoopers.
There are plenty of snoopers for other activities. The Government are not against snoopers in the DHSS. There has been a massive increase in the number of snoopers examining those who receive £25 or £26 a week, or for carrying out surveillance in cases of cohabitation and such matters.
Generally, bosses do not want people snooping on what they are doing. It is no surprise to me that they want to keep at bay those who would say that working conditions are not right and should be improved. They do not want the trade unions intruding. If one studies the historical development of the industrial revolution, one finds that the last thing the bosses want to stop them exploiting the workers or the flow of their entrepreneurial skills is to have inspectors, trade unions and watchdogs to see that people were not smashed to pieces by their jobs. I was paying a special compliment to my right hon. Friend for introducing the Health and Safety Executive.
The people employed in merchant shipping are now saying that they would like to come away from the Department of Transport and be brought under the general umbrella of the Health and Safety Executive because accidents and deaths are increasing at an incredible rate, in contrast with the reduction that took place after the 1975 Act. In the past few years, as a result of the rundown in the numbers of inspectors, the decline in the number of accidents is being reversed. When the Bill was going through the House of Commons I remember reading that "Lord Bananaskin," who was then in opposition, welcomed the measure. He said that he would support any measures which would increase and strengthen the areas of inspection. What a carry on. Since then there have been massive reductions in all the branches that were set up. There is no doubt that when the Act came into force, despite the initial problems with mines, quarries, agriculture, shipping, and so on, fairly significant improvements were made. Safety at work measures were overhauled as a result of the setting up of a special department. Instead of examining 250,000 work places with 11 million workers, the safety measures were extended to about 750,000 work places employing 17 million workers. The Act placed the duty upon employers to carry out proper inspections and brought all the inspectorates together.
In 1983, 3,723 people were employed in the Health and Safety Executive. In 1974, when the Act brought together all the groupings that I have described, the department

kicked off with 3,500 workers. The numbers rose to about 4,250 by the time that the Labour Government left office. Now, as a result of that crowd being in power, the numbers are down to 3,723.

Mr. Don Dixon: Does my hon. Friend also realise that when the legislation was introduced in 1974 it was promised that there would be 50 per cent. more factory inspectors? That promise was repeated in July 1979 by the Conservative Government, but the reverse has happened.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend is right. I do not know whether he has seen my notes. He is improving. He was on the Front Bench the other day and made a marvellous speech. Now he has come straight to the point. There were 978 factory inspectors in 1979—I believe that that was the highest ever figure—as a result of the Act when the Labour Government left office. By 1983 they were down to 833. The promise of a 50 per cent. increase is explained by those figures. There were 2,127 prosecutions in 1979 — not enough in my view. They are down now to 2,022. The average penalty following prosecutions under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act against employers who have not been carrying out their statutory duty, so that people have been burnt to death in fires or crushed in equipment, is £205.
I was sent a copy of February's edition of Safety and Fire News. It states:
Mailing magistrates fined a mid Kent firm £400 and ordered them to pay £660 costs.
That is nearly as much as the fine for a football hooligan on a bad day at Chelsea. The fine was imposed after a paper machine operator's skull had been smashed by a 3-tonne pressure bar. The article went on to say:
Although the firm's chief engineer insisted there had never been any similar accident or near miss involving the machine, the magistrates were told that the bar had fallen on three previous occasions. And factory inspector Malcolm Moore told the court that the firm had ignored these warnings … The firm … were convicted of negligence by the magistrates.
Another article is headed:
Tragic Electrocution 'could be prevented'".
It states:
Low cost insulation … could have saved the life of a 47-year-old farmworker … Ridgeway Grain Ltd., Edwards' employer"—
—Edwards was the man who was killed—
were fined £400 after admitting breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Mr. Dixon: I agree with my hon. Friend that the fines imposed on employers are meagre. Does he realise that on the day on which the National Graphical Association was fined £50,000, two employers were fined on average £1,000 each as four people had been killed due to neglect? That was ridiculously low.

Mr. Skinner: That explains why we are in the Opposition and why Tories support the Government. They represent the bosses. We represent those who are exploited by capitalism. I see that one alliance Member has turned up. The rest are absent from the debate.
Some of the fines imposed on those who went to defend the NGA on the picket line at Warrington were greater than those paid as a result of prosecutions after people had been killed. In the pits, mines and quarries the number of inspectors has decreased by 19 from 1980 to 1982. I shall get the figures right so that I am not challenged by the


Minister. His wages have not gone down. Since the Health and Safety Excutive came under his control he has had another £5,000, but he is not doing any extra work.
One might ask why we have had all these Government cuts. The answer is simple. The Government intend to give those who finance the Tory party a better chance of exploiting the workers. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh. There is always much nervous laughter when one touches that chord.

Mr. Andrew Rowe: The hon. Gentleman has talked eloquently about the number of cuts in the mining inspectorate. I think that he would have difficulty in proving that the National Coal Board has made massive contributions to the Conservative party.

Mr. Skinner: Let me put it this way. The man who is running the NCB now and the one who ran it before have made strong moral commitments to the Tory party. They made it abundantly clear which side of the fence they were on. I cannot be sure how many people in the NCB hierarchy have given money to the Tory party. I know what their actions suggest to me. I do not want to argue about whether they have made a financial contribution en bloc, but there is no doubt that they have assisted the Tory party in no uncertain fashion.
The cuts are being made because the Government represent the bosses. As soon as they came into power in 1979 there was a 3 per cent. cut in the staff of the Health and Safety Executive. In December 1979 another cut of 6 per cent. was announced. The Government received a TUC delegation. Big deal. The delegation met the then Secretary of State. However, in July 1980 there were further cuts of 8 per cent. Bill Simpson, the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission, went to see the Secretary of State. He said, "All these cuts are ripping the heart out of the Health and Safety Executive. We cannot carry out the functions that have been laid down by the Act of Parliament." He saw the wet Tory who is now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. One would have thought that that would make a difference. It did not. By December 1981 the Tory Government initiated another 2 per cent. cut, so the unions went to see the next Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). He argued in his usual fashion, "We are increasing resources. We are not cutting back at all." The Government had made these cuts, but he said that.
We all know what the then Secretary of State did with the figures. He knew how to fiddle them. He fiddled the unemployment figures as well as those for the Health and Safety Executive. No sooner had the unions turned their backs than there were cuts of 5 and 10 per cent. in the Health and Safety Executive.
There are fewer inspections and inspectors. In 1979, 22·5 per cent. of workplaces were inspected, but the figure is now down to 15·5 per cent. It is now suggested that as many as 25 per cent. of all the farms in Great Britain never have been or never will be visited because of the lack of inspectors. The chief inspector of the nuclear inspectorate said recently:
We are so overworked with having to go to the Sizewell inquiry to deal with the PWR application that we cannot carry out the job that we are supposed to do.
It is said that everything is all right at Windscale and that all the nuclear power stations are safe, yet the chief inspector said that the inspectors cannot do the work as there are not enough of them.
A legislation review unit was set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent. It has had to be abandoned. The Minister has announced a big campaign on noise. It is a big propaganda job. All the Tory newspapers, the BBC and the ITV have gone to great lengths to explain how the new Minister of State has started the campaign on noise. He says that noise in factories will be eliminated. What is happening in reality? There is money for the equipment. So it is all ballyhoo. All the talk about eliminating noise in factories to prevent industrial deafness is a gimmick invented by the Minister and his friends. In fact, the Health and Safety Executive does not have the cash to buy the equipment.

Mr. Pavitt: I have noted with care the amount of research that my hon. Friend has done into the question of inspections in various activities. Does he have any figures about the number of inspections that have taken place into noise affecting workers on the shop floor, and does he have any information about pressure being brought to bear on the Government to bring down the number of decibels permitted, remembering that in this country the permitted number is higher than in the Common Market?

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend wil have gleaned from my remarks that inspections are made probably not more than once every four or five yeas, if an establishment is lucky enough to get an inspection.

Mr. Dixon: The rate is now one in seven years.

Mr. Skinner: I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) for pointing out that inspections are taking place at establishments only once every seven years. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) has, I know, been active in campaigning to get a reduction in the number of decibels, but hardly anything has been done otherwise on the decibel question. The Government will go on trying to kid the workers that they are concerned about noise in factories and so on. They do not kid my hon. Friends, and they do not kid me.

Mr. John Evans: Is my hon. Friend aware that in one of its better moments, the EC Commission introduced proposals substantially to reduce the amount of noise to which workers could be exposed? In a recent debate in the European Parliament the Conservative Members voted against it, and in a debate in this House a few weeks ago the Minister of State said that he was under heavy pressure from all parts of the Tory party not to accept the regulation that the Commission had proposed.

Mr. Skinner: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that interruption, but I do not get worked up over the Common Market's activities. The Common Market is all about passing the buck. It enables the Establishment to say, "We should love to do something"—about this, that or the other — "and introduce regulations, say, to eliminate noise and enable claims to be made for industrial deafness, but we must deal with the Common Market." The Common Market does the same; the Assembly passes proposals and the Tory Members vote against it.
That is to be expected, because most of the Tory MEPs represent either the farmers or the people who are running the few factories that are left in Britain. I am not kidded by all the weaving and bobbing by the members of the


Tory party. At the end of the day, their activities are all about not giving the workers the freedoms and liberties at work that they need.

Mr. Dixon: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that the EC recommendation to which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans) referred—the debate on which in this House took place late at night — was for 85 decibels? The Government are trying to get the Health and Safety Executive to think in terms of 90 decibels. The difference between 85 and 90 may not sound much, but 90 decibels is four times as loud as 85, and that is what the argument is all about.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend is more aware than many hon. Members of these facts as a result of the long years that he worked in the shipyards, when the men were arguing not about who does what but about how to get the work done and make sure that they did not get wet through as they worked in the cold and the rain, outside in all weathers, deafened by the noise. My hon. Friend knows the figures well and, as he said, while to the layman the difference between 85 and 90 may not seem large, that difference must be put in its correct context.
Apart from all the other activities of the HSE that the Government have wound up, they have gone one further and as near as damn it got rid of the employment medical advisory service. That service was set up to promote high standards in occupational health and medicine. I have been sent a cutting from the Nursing Times—I am not normally sent cuttings from that publication—which, in the issue of 25 January 1984, wrote:
Twenty-three occupational health nurses look set to be made redundant — by the national OH watchdog itself, the Health and Safety Executive. One of the nurses threatened … claims they have all been kept 'completely in the dark' … The OH nurses were all full-time until 1980".
Those nurses are being sacked because of Government cuts, yet the Prime Minister talks about St. Francis of Assisi and compassion when she uses one of her many Janet Brown voices to kid the people.
When replying to the debate, the Minister will no doubt argue that notwithstanding all the cuts that have occurred in the Health and Safety Executive there are today fewer accidents. That will probably be the centrepiece of his argument—that we are doing all right; that only 3,723 people are employed there as opposed to 4,250 when we came to office, but that the number of accidents is still declining.
Of course, the Minister has a few things on his side. For example, about 50,000 firms have gone bankrupt or into liquidation since the Tories came to power in 1979. He will probably not refer to the fact that, as a result of abolishing industrial injury benefit, it is more difficult to estimate the number of people involved in accidents at work. Further, with getting on for 4 million people on the dole, we have between 1 million and 2 million fewer people at work today than in 1979.
Despite all those facts and all the claims that the Minister may make, the accident rate in manufacturing industry has gone up, as it has in construction and, in particular, in mining. Indeed, I was not certain of the figures until I checked them yesterday. When the Labour party left office in 1979, 1·03 people were killed or seriously injured per 100,000 manshifts in the mines. In

1982 the system of measurement was changed—I would not allow the Minister to get away without that being mentioned — and the figure went up to 1·75 per 100,000. But by 1983, the last figures available, it had gone up to 1·96, even measured by the new system. In other words, there has been a 12 per cent. increase in the number of people killed or seriously injured in the mines, even in the last year.
Because of the rundown in the HSE, with fewer inspectors and fewer inspections, we are beginning to see a trend; the accident rate is rising fast. Indeed, an article in the Financial Times suggested that an increase would be revealed throughout the length and breadth of British industry.
I grant that there will be areas where there will not be an increase. They will be safe enough inside Greenham common. The Government are looking after the Yanks; they will make sure that there are proper inspections taking place inside Greenham common. They will not be too interested in the people outside. The Yanks will make sure of that. We are reaching the stage when almost every week a missive is sent from Ronald Reagan to the Prime Minister telling her to do this, that or the other, and I have no doubt that he has made sure that all the necessary safety equipment has been installed to look after his soldiers and others inside the Greenham common Yankee camp.
The Minister is likely to argue that, in this age of technology, we need not worry about the number of staff being reduced in the HSE—a reduction of about 700—because a computer system has been introduced, as a result of which we are able to rationalise our resources. The fact that we have fewer staff and therefore fewer inspections should not worry us, we shall be told, because the computer is able to show exactly where the risk spots are, so we need visit only those. According to the people engaged in the use of computers—I shall not name them because I know what the Government do to people who have the audacity to speak their mind and who are members of a trade union — that is another con trick because the computer is eliminating only the so-called "low risk" areas. The rogue employers are not being investigated — for example, in the recent east end clothing factory fire, several people were killed. Sweat shops of that type will be left out of the investigation because the computer will track over, concentrate on some of the larger industries and leave the rest out.
The investigations will not bother about those kids who are killed or injured on the youth training scheme. The Government claim that they are worried about them, just as they did recently in a letter to me about Mr. Layton, one of my constituents from Shirebrook. He told me that he used to be a lorry driver for the firm Bowmans. He picked up cold slurry and carted it to a power station. The people at the power station said that the truck load had too great a water content, so sheets had to be put over the top of the truck—not that the employer had apparently bothered about that before. Mr. Layton asked for a ladder to put the sheet over the top of the truck. Because my constituent not only asked his employer about getting a ladder to climb up to put the sheets on but asked a bloke about inspecting the coal slurry, he got the sack.
The matter went to the Health and Safety Executive and to the Minister. What did the hard-hearted Minister do? He supported the tribunal. Mr. Layton had been a lorry driver for 18 years. He had merely made a complaint about the need for sheeting and subsequently asked for a ladder so


that men could climb up to put the sheeting on the truck. Previously several people suffered various injuries and one had recently broken his ankle.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear to the House that he is talking about an independent industrial tribunal—

Mr. Skinner: It is not independent.

Mr. Gummer: —which made a decision. As Minister, I have no power to intervene nor should I intervene in the actions of that independent tribunal. Does the hon. Gentleman not find it disgraceful to attack the independence of an industrial tribunal?

Mr. Skinner: I do not regard it as an independent tribunal, and I never have done. That statement applies also to local appeal tribunals dealing with special hardship and industrial deaths—I might as well get it all out on the record — because most people on those tribunals represent the Minister's class. They are lawyers and people from the CBI and such organisations. They do not understand what it is like to be injured at work. I have never accepted that those tribunals are independent. It made no difference to me when the Labour Government were in power, so I am not saying anything out of turn. I have always believed that those tribunals are stacked against the ordinary worker.
The Minister should have investigated Mr. Layton's case and given him a chance of a further review. The Minister has certain powers, but he decided not to use them because he is not concerned about a fellow who complained about wanting a ladder to save himself from injury. The Minister is concerned about the employer, who is from his class.

Mr. Dixon: The Minister would say, "Because fewer people are employed and 4 million people are on the dole because of our policies, we do not need factory inspectors for them because they are not working." The reverse is true. Many of the large companies—some have closed — have safety committees and are safety conscious. Many small cowboy outfits which have grown up because of the Government's policies have poor safety provisions. The HSE should be more vigilant.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend is right. That has occurred because it takes time for the trade union movement which represents workers to build up their expertise, even in large factories and gradually to get on top of the job of providing for health and safety at work. Once the trade unions have achieved that, the Government come along and, ruling by fear, decide to run down industry and throw people on the dole. This means that 300 or 400 people are chasing after each job. That is part of the rule by fear. Having done that, the Government take more of the freedoms that have been fought for under the Health and Safety and Work etc Act 1974. My hon. Friend is bang on about that aspect.
Suppose the HSE had been up to standard with 4,400 or more staff, and suppose that, with 4 million on the dole, it was possible for the increased number of inspectors in the HSE to inspect premises—not after an accident but before one. The complaint registered by my constituent would have been examined. He lost his job and is now on £25 a week because of his complaint. That suits the Tory Government. That is the type of society that they want and

why youngsters are on £25 a week. The Government want to bring down wages so that profits can grow and finish in the pockets of the Tory party.
The Government are not only unable to deal with the inspections required at present but are bringing down new regulations. The handling of hazardous substances regulations will come into force in early 1984, and the Government will need more staff to deal with those regulations. The Government will not provide that extra staff, so there will not be the extra resources needed to carry out the legislation. When the regulations for controlling major hazards are passed, further demands will be placed on the HSE and it will not receive the extra resources. The Government have introduced the asbestos licensing regulations. The HSE has been inundated with requests to go to the cowboy firms that are stripping asbestos. The staff of the HSE have said that asbestos stripping is a labour-intensive job and that they cannot keep up with it. There is much ballyhoo about removing asbestos to improve working conditions, but the Government make no extra resources available.
We want an expansion in the HSE and an increase in the number of inspectors so that we can reach the targeted number of jobs. There is much talk about the new technology-based industries. Surveillance must be carried out. An article in The Guardian of 26 January states:
The locations of about 2,000 sites handling dangerous chemicals are kept secret by the Health and Safety Executive because of pressure from private industry, according to a report published by the 1984 Freedom of Information Campaign.
The Confederation of British Industry is said to have blocked a recent attempt by the Health and Safety Executive to persuade the Government to name the sites requiring local authorities to provide information to people liable to be affected by an accident. As a result, only 250 sites will be made public.

Mr. John Evans: Is my hon. Friend aware that section 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act included a subsection that was inserted by the Conservative Opposition which laid upon employers a requirement that they notify residents within the area of dangerous practices or toxic substances being used within that establishment which could be hazardous to people living around the factory? That subsection has never been implemented. One would have thought that, when the Tories took office, one of their first actions would have been to implement the subsection that they inserted in the legislation.

Mr. Skinner: The Prime Minister is for ever appearing on television and talking about how the Government cannot do certain things.

Mr. John Evans: That is right.

Mr. Skinner: That is the Prime Minister's philosophy. She says that the Government cannot interfere and that the market force system must prevail. Roughly, she is saying that all will come out in the wash. When it is suggested that the Government must bring in a directive to make a change and to organise the system so that the well-being of the people around the factory is looked after, the Prime Minister asks herself whether the measure will clash with her philosophy. Milton Friedman may ring up and say, "What the hell's going out? My whole creed is being smashed through your Government's interference". The past five years have been riddled with such dilemmas for the Government. The Government are now suffering because the dilemmas are taking a much starker form. I can well understand why they do not do anything.

Mr. Pavitt: To amplify the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans), it is not just a matter of toxic substances in factories. At Willesden junction in my constituency ICI has some very large silos which cause considerable concern because nobody knows whether the contents are changed from time to time for more toxic or perhaps even radioactive substances.

Mr. Skinner: I can well understand that concern. In and around my constituency and the constituencies of Chesterfield and Derbyshire, North-East, a number of firms such as Staveley Chemicals and Bolsover Coalite have been developing the new chemical-based industries, but the inspectors cannot keep up with the developments. More attention must be paid to areas like that. We hear plenty of talk about the need to stop pollution, about acid rain in Sweden and West German forests. I am worried about the people in our constituencies where the Health and Safety Executive needs more staff and resources to keep up with the new developments in the chemical-based industries.
In 1968, before I was a Member of Parliament, there was an explosion at Bolsover Coalite and people finished up with a disease called chloracne. Nobody even knew what caused that until there was a similar explosion in Seveso in Italy followed by an outbreak of chloracne. As the Italian factory was carrying out similar operations, the Bolsover company realised what had happened. In other words, it took another accident seven years later to enlighten people, not to mention some local press activity and various other people becoming involved. Only then did we manage to stop the production of dioxin at that factory and stop the company making money out of it.
That has not stopped the Prime Minister's husband, of course. He is still in the chemical-based industries. He does not mind making a penny or two—or a million or two — out of spreading these chemicals all over the world. Very little is said about that here, but it illustrates my argument. The Prime Minister's husband would not welcome the Tory Government stepping in with new regulations because my hon. Friend's constituents in Brent, South are suffering. Denis Thatcher would not be at all happy if the Tories trooped through the Lobby in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), and the Financial Times then informed him that, due to the new regulations, share prices had fallen by 20 per cent. That is the real world. My hon. Friend has been around long enough to understand that as well as most.
When serious accidents occur — Flixborough was a case in point—everybody is upset and even the Tories say that it must not happen again. Everyone says that new regulations must be introduced, but the Government do nothing. They starve the Health and Safety Executive of the resources to carry out its work.
New areas of technology are constantly being developed. It is now suggested that people who have to watch visual display units for hours on end are suffering from facial dermatitis and God knows how many other diseases. The Health and Safety Executive cannot investigate that properly because it does not have sufficient staff.
The same applies to the nuclear industries. There is a ready answer to that, of course, although we cannot deal with it today. I am sure that many of my hon. Friends

would support the idea of halting the nuclear programme altogether and using the 300 years' supply of coal that lies below the earth instead of closing down the pits.
We cannot have a stronger Health and Safety Executive with inspectors all over the place ensuring that working condition are safe and fewer people are killed and injured unless we have the money to finance it. I have never suggested that money falls out of the sky, but there are plenty of places we could get it from. We could reverse the tax cuts which have allowed people with incomes of more than £29,000 per year to make money out of five years of Tory rule. Let us take back the recent £300 million handout. If we give £230 million of that to the people suffering under the housing benefit scheme, there will be £70 million left for the Health and Safety Executive. Many of the problems raised in today's debate would then be well on the way to being solved.
The Government are spending £18,000 million to finance the dole queue. They say that there is no money in the country when there is all that waste of talent and resources. The latest estimate for Trident is £12,000 million. The Government are spending all that to keep Ronald Reagan happy and to provide additional work in the run-up to his election before the boom comes to a sudden halt and we run into the biggest economic crisis that this country or the western world has ever faced.
We have money to send to Argentina. The Prime Minister had to crawl on her hands and knees to the bankers. About this time last year, the big five — Midland, Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays, and the governor of the Bank of England—told her that they had money out there which they could not get back because Argentina had no money to pay. They suggested that all those bad debts — in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the other 40 rescheduling countries — should be set off against tax. The Prime Minister thought that it was a good idea but was afraid that the story might get out. It did get out because I put down a parliamentary question about it. We are paying for tax relief on all those hundreds of millions of pounds.
That money is going to bail out not the Argentine people but the bankers in Argentina—the friends of the big bankers here. They might even be able to afford a few more bombs to lob across to the airport that the British taxpayer is financing in the Falklands or to drop on the prefabricated units acquired from Sweden through James Brewster Associates. That is another story that the Prime Minister hoped would not get out. The Government do not want the Health and Safety Executive examining those units. They have triple glazing. I am sure that my hon. Friend would appreciate that in Willesden. Out there, there are triple-glazed houses built by a Swedish firm. The Prime Minister was not batting for Britain then. She went in first and opened the innings for Sweden. There is plenty of money for her son, too, opening the innings out in Oman, whizzing around with the Omani air force and picking up money on the side.
Of course there is plenty of money in this country. The carpet in this Chamber cost £24 per sq yd, yet we are told that there is no money in this country. I am told that the Duke of Devonshire has now organised his taxes so that his group does not pay any, so there must be plenty of money about. I read the other day that a question had been tabled in the House of Commons. The Government are talking about there being no money. The Prime Minister has had £1·5 million spent by the taxpayer to pay for all


her visits abroad in the past five years, and she goes on about the taxpayer's money and she goes on about the GLC. All her friends on the Tory Benches attack the GLC for looking after the citizens of London, and those in other areas throughout the country, by providing free bus travel and other services for pensioners. She has received £1·5 million to finance all her gallivanting trips abroad, and what does she come back with—nothing. She has gone to the Common Market for the past five years supposedly to bring back bucketfuls of money. This country spends £4,000 million on contributions to the Common Market in subscriptions alone. Since this Prime Minister has been in power, we have spent £2,500 million, 60 per cent. of the total, and yet we are told that she is coming back with barrel-loads of money, so of course there is plenty of money in the country to finance the Health and Safety Executive.
The Health and Safety Executive needs only a few million pounds to start with on top of the £85 million it now has, yet all this money is being wasted. The Government will find it for the stock exchange and the law courts, but they are not bothered about the Health and Safety Executive. They are not bothered about the GCHQ either, because they let the Yanks tell them how to organise affairs and strip the workers of their right to belong to a trade union — and we reckon that we are living in a free country.
The debate is not about the board rooms in which 300-odd Tories with their various directorships are represented. The debate is about the workers, the ones who are last in the queue every time, the ones who are told that, if they will only wait, they can have everything, but it will not be today, oh, no, not today, and there is just a chance it will not be tomorrow, because that is too soon as well.
In the 30 years in which I have been involved in politics, we have always been told by the Tory Establishment, and the other echelons of the Establishment, that the workers have got to wait for another year to get their benefits. We are demanding that the Health and Safety Executive be financed in a way in which it can carry out its job.
I said earlier that the Government's strategy is ruled by fear. This rundown of the Health and Safety Executive that is endangering people's lives at work is all part of that process: get people on the dole, get them fighting for jobs, make them have to put up with all sorts of inconveniences when they work in factories and offices, and say to them, "Do not complain, do not get on to the Health and Safety Executive". The Minister can then say that the number of complaints has gone down, because the people at work are frightened to open their mouths. The constituent I mentioned is an example of that, but Mr. Layton opened his mouth and, as a result, he got thrown on the dole. This Minister refused to assist him in any way.
The TUC has launched a campaign to get the Health and Safety Executive off the ground, and that is what I have been trying to do today. I know that my hon. Friends will attempt to do the same. I have to say to Len Murray and the rest of them, with their built-in automaticity rule on the general council, that all the fine words this morning from any hon. Member on these Benches will not be enough. It is all part of a propaganda exercise, but I am not fooled. We cannot win in the House. There is the parliamentary arithmetic against us for a start, a Government majority of 144, and it is bigger than that when the Social dreamers and the rest of that lot do not turn

up. When they do turn up, they vote with the Government most of the time, if they are not on a sabbatical. I am not kidding about what we can do in this place. I say to Len Murray, in response to the attempt I have made this morning to set the debate on its way in the House of Commons—and it is important, it has to be done—that, if we are going to win this battle, it will be won in the factories, in the offices, in the pits, in the dockyards and in the shipyards. A more co-ordinated effort by the TUC is needed, and it must not divorce health and safety at work from all the other things that it has to do. This situation is linked with the Warrington picket line, the attacks on the NGA and the attacks on those workers down at Cheltenham and elsewhere. They are all linked, because this Government have their plans carefully worked out. I say to the TUC, therefore, that we are pleased to get involved in the campaign, but the TUC must understand that, to achieve the ultimate success that we want for working class people, it will have to be done by extra-parliamentary activity, and on the picket line.

Mr. Tony Baldry: Having heard the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) speak for just over an hour, I have come to the conclusion that he is a much maligned man. The suggestion that he might be a beast is a despicable accusation. I have come to the conclusion, having had the opportunity to hear him, that he is much more like a constant walking shaggy dog story. He is like one of those shaggy dogs that one meets on a housing estate; the kind that barks at the postman and the milkman, and yaps at everything. The hon. Gentleman yaps so much that one can never sort out what he is yapping at. One cannot sort out the good points from the bad. I suspect that somewhere in those 60 minutes of the hon. Gentleman's speech there may well have been a good point, but he yaps so often that one has become immune to listening to anything that he has to say.
What the hon. Gentleman did have to say was interesting, because it highlighted the inherent differences between the philosophy of these Benches and that of his Benches. To sum up what he said in just over an hour, the accusation is that the Government have cut the funding to the Health and Safety Executive, which in turn has meant that the executive has had to reduce the number of inspectors, which in turn has caused more accidents, which in turn means, quod erat demonstrandum, that the Government are responsible for more accidents. That is what I think the hon. Gentleman was saying.
In my submission, that is philosophical, factual and practical nonsense. It is philosophical nonsense because not at any time during the hour and a bit during which the hon. Gentleman spoke did he ever mention the concept of individual responsibility. The response of the Labour Benches and the Labour party to any problem is that it is a problem for the state and the only way one solves it is by spending more taxpayers' money.
It is my submission that the primary responsibility for doing something about present levels of occupational accidents and diseases lies with those who create the risks and those who work with them. That was what Robens said in 1973. It is the individual responsibility of the employees, the individual responsibility of employers, and, might I say, the individual responsibility of Members of the House, to set an example, to give a lead in our own


patches and our own constituencies, to try to encourage employers and employees to think health at work and to think safety at work.
The hon. Gentleman lives and dreams the conspiracy theory of politics. He lives and dreams the theory that every employer is doing nothing, and wanting to do nothing, other than conspire against his work force. That is absolute bunkum. I have yet to come across an employer who does not want to co-operate with those who work with him to provide a safe and sound workplace in which to work.
I think that the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) put it succinctly in a recent article when he said that
it is time that people recognised that the best people to lean on workers to achieve reasonable standards of industrial safety are their own unions, their own selected or elected leaders, their colleagues and their mates.
That came from an hon. and learned Member who sits on the Labour Benches, and it sounds sense. It advocates co-operation; none of this ghastly class conflict, this cheap chat of extra-parliamentary activity.
I have to tell the hon. Member for Bolsover that it is people like him who have destroyed the Labour party, that it is people like him who have ensured that the Conservative party has a majority of 144, and that I look forward with confidence, because of people like him, to sitting on these Benches for some years to come.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: We do not want the Tory party to tell us what to do. We can interpret what we have to do, and do it, far more competently than anyone on the Government Benches.
I want to return to what the hon. Gentleman said about the philosophical concept. He relied solely on the basis of individual responsibility. Is he saying, as a corollary, that we do not need the Health and Safety Executive? If he is, will he now confine himself to the legislation for which his Government are responsible? Our case rests on the fact that, in practice and implementation, they have not lived up to their legislation.

Mr. Baldry: The hon. Gentleman needs only to look at the empty Benches around him—even if there is to be a full Division — to realise how much work the Labour party must do to set its house in order.
One of my difficulties as both a Member and a barrister is that of trying to deal with the number of very bad points made by the Opposition. It has become almost impossible to distinguish between the bad points and the good points—[Interruption.] Before Opposition Members denounce barristers, I remind them that the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Ryman), who has just left the Chamber, is a barrister. And before the hon. Member for Bolsover starts talking about public schoolboys, I must tell him that there are twice as many old boys from my school sitting on the Labour Benches as there are on the Government Benches.
A major step towards encouraging individual responsibility was introduced by the Labour Government led by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan) — the last true attempt at a social democratic Government that this country will ever see, pitiful though it was. They introduced safety committee regulations and safety representatives. Rather

than listening to empty, wasted, useless chat about extra-parliamentary activity, it would be better if the House constructively considered how it can campaign to ensure that every work place has a safety representative, and that those representatives get together in areas to discuss how to make their work places safer. Let us at least attempt to take a more constructive and positive approach.
The hon. Gentleman's argument was flawed not only for philosophical reasons, but for practical reasons. The Health and Safety Executive requires fewer staff because computer-based rating systems for hazard assessment have been introduced. That means that visits by inspectors can be targeted on areas with the greatest priority — where the risk to employees and the general public are great or where the track record of the firm shows that visits are necessary. In any event, fewer inspectors do not affect the number of accidents—only the number of accidents that can be thoroughly investigated.
Rather than constant carping, I suggest that the Labour party should welcome the Government's provision of additional financial resources for the Health and Safety Executive in each of the years since they took office—despite the economic climate and a broader policy of restricting public spending.
The consultant editor of Health and Safety at Work took a practical approach to the matter in an editorial in this month's edition. He said:
When conversations turn to discussing accidents at work, they usually centre on how many of them there are within a period—traditionally a year. The talk of total numbers is followed by a completely stereotyped series of responses"—
such as we heard from the hon. Member for Bolsover today.
The consultant editor continued in the practical and constructive attitude that we have not heard from the Opposition this morning, and said:
I should like to suggest a slightly different way of looking at work accidents — by stressing that there are very few of them! The only problem is that the few there are keep on happening over and over again. They happen to lots of different people, in many different places and at different times. This appears to be so because we seem to feel obliged only to learn from our own experience and shy away from the benefits of industry's past and present collective experience of 'classic' accidents.
It is really all a matter of changing from a purely numerical approach to accidents to an analytical one that identifies particularly troublesome activities on which we could all concentrate our efforts. Take just two examples of 'classic' accidents — the mayhem and death caused by reversing vehicles — and the loss of life to unprotected, would-be rescuers entering fume-filled tanks bravely but in vain.
Identifying and dealing with a mere handful of these classics would make a substantial dent in the accident totals—certainly big enough to start a trend!
Unlike the hon. Member for Bolsover, I believe that collective individual action towards such targets could make great headway. We should say to those in the road haulage business, "Right, let's have a campaign on reversing vehicles." We should say to those in the chemical industry, "Right, let's have a campaign to make people more aware of the dangers of fumes." That would make considerably more headway than trying to make cheap points, quoting statistics and promoting some nonexistent class war. Everyone wants to ensure that the accident statistics are reduced to a much lower level than at present.
I wish to make a number of brief points to support my contention that we should analyse where, how and why accidents happen rather than simply studying statistics.
We should run individual campaigns, and I fully support the campaign on noise being organised by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Employment. Other campaigns could be organised on chemicals and asbestos. We must ensure that the publicity provided by the Health and Safety Executive is carried out with much greater flair. The publications on health and safety matters must be more attractive, more eye-catching and really get their message home. We need to inform not only employers but employees of what needs to be done. Clear, attractive, one-page leaflets should be distributed on the dangers of asbestos, chemical safety and noise. That should be supported by co-ordinated campaigns in specific areas.
Every worker exposed to asbestos should be given a leaflet to help him understand about asbestos and its dangers. We live in a chemically pervasive society. There are few factories and workshops where chemicals are not lying around. We are not sufficiently aware of the dangers or how to safeguard against them. I hope that the regulations, which I suspect will be introduced soon, will provide a clear and simple classification for the packaging and labelling of dangerous substances. Together with that, there must be a clear and coherent publicity campaign to ensure that everyone understands which chemicals are dangerous. Anyone entering a work place should know at a glance how dangerous a chemical might be and what medical attention must be given if there is any spillage. We must have an imaginative publicity campaign to ensure that we are all aware of chemicals and their dangers.
Although large companies have safety representatives and are conscious of their obligations to their work force, the new, small firms sometimes tend to let such matters slip. I suspect that that is not usually because of culpable willingness and wilfulness to ignore health and safety obligations, but rather a simple ignorance of them.
A well-organised and well-run company will register with the Health and Safety Executive, obtain a copy of form 9 from its area offices, get various other general forms, obtain accident books, a register of notifiable accidents and dangerous occurrences, and so on, but an increasing number of new small firms do not have the need for that drawn to their attention. Therefore, it might be a good idea to brief the small firms service about the health and safety requirements for new companies. Easily understandable leaflets should be made available to explain what is required. Local enterprise agencies, which are being set up throughout the country, should be encouraged to start new businesses and to ensure that they run in a way that is both safe and healthy.
Ultimately, it is important to put across the message at local level. I venture to suggest that a decent double-page spread on health and safety in every local newspaper would prove far more worth while than all the extra-parliamentary activity that the hon. Member for Bolsover can muster. People want to know how to run their businesses in accordance with the health and safety requirements. They do not want to duck their responsibilities. They want to know how best to approach the matter.
I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to give us some guidance on a simple practical matter. We heard quite a lot from the hon. Member for Bolsover about the sanctions imposed by magistrates' courts. Of course, the great conspiracy theory of politics suggests that the magistrates' courts are all run by lackeys of the ruling class—

Mr. John Evans: They are.

Mr. Baldry: I think that that is very insulting to the many members of the trade union movement who serve as magistrates. They would find that remark offensive.

Mr. Evans: Very few of them sit as magistrates.

Mr. Baldry: Even in industrial areas, the number of prosecutions brought before magistrates on health and safety matters is far less than the number of prosecutions for motoring and other offences. The Magistrates Association gives magistrates clear guidelines on the tariffs for motoring offences. However, perhaps more help and guidance could be given by the Magistrates Association on the tariffs to impose for health and safety matters and the criteria that should be referred to when a tariff is being fixed.
My experience in magistrates' courts, when both prosecuting and defending on health and safety matters, is that it is often a bit of a lottery, not because magistrates do not want to do their best by the community as a whole, but because they do not have a sufficiently wide—

Mr. Gummer: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for allowing me to interrupt him. His experience is important, and I wonder whether he would care to comment on the suggestion that one of the problems about making decisions in magistrates' courts is that magistrates may not sometimes be sufficiently aware that the Health and Safety Executive takes firms to court only as a last resort. It tries to improve things first. Therefore, when it takes a case to court it is because it is serious and should not be seen as a sort of first offence. It is a very serious matter and should be seen as such by magistrates.

Mr. Baldry: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Magistrates Association could well make that point to its members. My experience is that when the Health and Safety Executive takes cases to the Crown court there is no difficulty, because Crown court judges are used to applying the tariffs and know the criteria. I think that a little more education of magistrates is required on Health and Safety Executive matters. Magistrates are not unwilling to do their duty by the community, but in some areas they do not have sufficient guidelines.
I am sure my hon. Friends will say, as I do, that we all have a responsibility for ensuring that everyone works in a healthy and safe environment. We cannot abrogate that responsibility by saying that it is the duty of the state, and then crying for more funds for state organisations. We all have an individual responsibility. Conservative Members spend a considerable amount of time trying to get to every workplace and factory in their constituencies. When we go to those factories, we shall now be thinking about health, safety, noise and so on.
After we have asked what the prospects are for employment and investment we shall ask what the company—the employers and the work force—are doing to ensure that it is a healthy and safe place in which to work. We all have that responsibility, and we cannot shift it on to the state and arrogate our responsibilities to others.

Mr. Michael Foot: The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) sought to reprove my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for the manner in which he presented his case. However, those of my hon. Friends who heard the speech of my hon. Friend


the Member for Bolsover will be extremely grateful to him for raising the subject, and for the way in which he presented the case. He presented it with his customary passion and determination, and included a whole series of facts and figures. It is notable that the hon. Member for Banbury did not seek to answer any of my hon. Friend's points. Accordingly, we shall have to wait to see whether the Minister does so later.
I am particularly glad to take part in the debate, because I was the Minister responsible when the health and safety legislation was enacted and the Health and Safety Commission was established. I am proud of the work that we sought to initiate then, and am interested in ensuring that the House continues to survey it. What my hon. Friend said at the beginning made it clear that it was essential that the House should continue its survey of the activities of the Health and Safety Commission and the Department of Employment. I hope that such debates on the work of the commission will become a regular part of our proceedings. They can help to save lives and to ensure that the commission does the job that those of us who set it up, and Parliament, envisaged.
I pay tribute to some of those who have made the commission work, and who have been associated with it from the beginning. I have three people, in particular, in mind. First, I pay tribute to Bill Simpson, the chairman of the commission, who wrote his most recent words on the subject in the last report that he presented. He has been there from the beginning, and has given the commission a splendid start. There are two other people without whom the commission could never have been established in the way in which it was. I refer first to the director general, John Locke, who played the foremost part in ensuring that the commission was established. In the previous years he had been very active and determined. I am not one of those who believe that it is right to denounce civil servants in the way that some do. John Locke was one of the great civil servants, and without his inspiration and drive we would not have been able to establish the commission in

that way. Fortunately, having played the leading part in establishing it, he was also appointed director general. He has been there for nine years, and knows more about it than anyone else in the country. His work has been of outstanding importance to the commission.
Professor Harvey was associated with those who sought to establish the commission, and he played a leading part in trying to enthuse all the different people whose backing had to be secured if we were to succeed with the legislation, frame the commission, and make it work. I know that he looked forward to the establishment of a commission that would cover the whole area of safety at work. He knew that real advances could be made in that way. He believed that he knew more about it than anybody else, because he had the whole experience of the inspectorate behind him. He also believed that the legislation that we introduced was the most important legislation on factories to have been brought in since the first Factory Acts in the 1820s and soon after. He believed that the Act could ensure that we carried health and safety into the new age on a far better basis than was ever done previously. One of the reasons why he was so passionate about the matter was that he knew it could not be left to market forces. The free market could not be left to determine how these things—

It being Eleven o'clock, MR. SPEAKER interrupted proceedings, pursuant to Standing Order No. 5 (Friday sittings).

Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As we are taking part in a serious debate and as a serious matter is being introduced in view of the variations in what different Ministers have to say, I should like to know whether the Foreign Secretary's statement will be followed by another statement from another Minister. We must get things clear today. Ministers are arguing the toss with one another on television; one is saying one thing and one is saying another. Can we be assured that we are to hear the real statement from the real Foreign Secretary?

Mr. Speaker: We have not heard the statement yet.

GCHQ (Trade Union Membership)

Mr. Allan Williams: (by private notice)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will clarify the terms he has offered the staff at GCHQ.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe.): The terms are as I stated them to the House on 25 January. Staff who do not wish to continue to serve at GCHQ have been offered the opportunity of seeking a transfer to another part of the Civil Service. As I informed the House at the time:
Every effort will be made to transfer to other departments staff who are unwilling to remain in GCHQ under the new conditions. GCHQ will continue to employ them while this is being done. Staff for whom it proves impossible to arrange a transfer to another Department will be eligible for premature retirement on redundancy terms." —[Official Report, 25 January 1984: Vol.52; c. 920.]
The position for those who refuse to move to an alternative suitable post is as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe), the Minister of State, Treasury, in his reply to a question from the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). In accordance with the normal procedures, and as was made clear on 25 January, they will not be treated as redundant nor be entitled to any compensation.
The existing conditions of service relating to redundancy provide that a civil servant who refuses to move to a suitable post anywhere in the country, in the case of a mobile officer, and anywhere within daily travelling distance of his home, in the case of a non-mobile officer, is treated to all intents and purposes as though he had resigned.

Mr. Williams: I must say that that is among the nost brazen, unrepentant and incompetent responses that I have ever heard from a Minister. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted to the House that he completely failed to describe a central fact in his statement of 25 January. Is it not incredible that in his statement to the House on 25 January, and as recently as last night on "TV Eye", he thought that there were only three options available to civil servants at GCHQ, and seemed to be utterly unaware of the fourth and critical penal option which he has just spelt out to the House? Will he confirm that, as a result of signing that they have read and understood general notice 100, which has been issued by the director of GCHQ, if the staff at GCHQ do not leave the union, or will not accept the upheaval of transfer, they become subject to possible instant dismissal or, as it says in the notice,
notice at the discretion of the director."?
If it is instant dismissal, that means without any pay beyond the date of dismissal. As a result of instant dismissal the staff will lose any rights to redundancy pay, premature pension and any annual leave that is owed to them, for pay in lieu of that leave.
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that it is not, as some of the press have suggested, just a few people who have been caught in the miserable quandary of having to choose between abandoning their principles and leaving their trade union, and accepting domestic upheaval with a transfer or seeing their careers and livelihoods absolutely destroyed? Far from being a few,

as this is a specialist union there are over 3,500 civil servants in the relevant grades at GCHQ who are under the Government's blackmail threat. It is in an area where there are virtually no alternative Civil Service jobs available anyhow.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Redundancy.

Mr. Williams: They do not get redundancy, that is the point. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just spelt that out. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that he stands condemned because he not only misled the House—we accept completely that that was inadvertent —[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

Mr. Skinner: Ignorance.

Mr. Williams: It was ignorant but inadvertent. Ignorance is an offence as well. As importantly, he has revealed a level of incompetence that would be unforgiveable in the greenest and newest of Under-Secretaries of State. That is especially unforgiveable in a man of his legal distinction, when one considers the consequences for the lives of thousands of civil servants who have committed no offence other than to have the misfortune to be employed in the Department of which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is the head.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I repudiate absolutely the charges that the right hon. Gentleman has just made. One thing should first be made clear, that the question as put to me on television last night was not the question put to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury and answered by him in the House yesterday—

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): indicated assent.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: —and the television company concerned has apologised for having put the question in an inaccurate way. The question gave a wholly misleading impression of what my hon. Friend had said. What I explained in answer to the question and what I explain again now is the range of options that is open. People will either be able, if they accept the terms as changed, to remain at GCHQ in their present posts on their present terms apart from that change. If they are unwilling to do that, then they have the option of moving to a suitable alternative job within the Civil Service.
That option arises in two forms. If a civil servant is a mobile officer, he is required to move anywhere in the country. In those circumstances, he will receive the normal compensation for disturbance that is available under Civil Service terms. If he is a non-mobile officer, the option is to take up an alternative job that is available within daily travelling distance. All these three options are open either to those who accept the terms or to those who do not wish to accept the terms, who have the option of going somewhere else.

Mr. Alan Williams: We already know all that.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: But if it is impossible to find a suitable alternative job for them under either of those conditions, the option of redundancy arises—in other words, if no such job can be found for them. But if, having had a suitable alternative job offered to them away from their original place of employment—if that is what they choose—they refuse to take that job, then, as was made clear in a notice issued to the staff on 25 January, they can—

Mr. John Evans: Leave the country.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: If they refuse to accept an alternative posting, they will have their employment terminated from a date to be determined by the director.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Disgraceful.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: That is perfectly logical. There are available to them the options of continuation in their present terms of employment that are comparable to those available in comparable intelligence agencies, or the option of transfer on the lines that I have described to suitable alternative employment. It is only if they refuse those options that the last situation arises. If there is no job that can be found for them of a suitable kind—if in that sense it proves impossible for a job to be found—then, as I explained in my statement last week, in those circumstances very generous redundancy terms are, of course, available.

Sir Anthony Kershaw: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that this hare will not run for long because there is no dichotomy between the statements of my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury? My hon. Friend was talking about the case of a civil servant who refuses to move, which the vast majority of civil servants are obliged to do under their contract of service. My right hon. and learned Friend was talking about the civil servant for whom there is no alternative employment. It must be realised that there are few alternative jobs where perfect Byelorussian is necessary and the person for whom no alternative employment can be found is entitled to full trade union rights in terms of redundancy.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If no suitable alternative employment can be found within the ordinary rules prevailing for civil servants, whether in the mobile grades requiring mobility or the non-mobile grades requiring acceptance of a job within ordinary travel distance, and it is impossible to arrange a suitable transfer, redundancy terms will become available. But those who decide that they cannot stay at GCHQ and be subject to the changes being made there and refuse a suitable alternative job of the kind that I have described will, as was explained to them at the time, be treated as having terminated their employment.

Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: As it is now clear that it was never necessary to go down the path that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has pursued—if only he had discussed it all with the trade unions in the first place—has not it also become clear that the Foriegn Secretary has handled the matter in an absolutely shambolic way? In view of the unnecessary withdrawal of rights and, much more serious, the damage that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is doing to national security in having this whole issue brought under public scrutiny, has not the time come for him to resign and hand over his portfolio to someone who can carry it out properly?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I totally reject the hon. Member's suggestion. The operations of GCHQ had remained unavowed and unacknowledged until my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a statement on 12 May last year, putting them on the record.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: The Foreign Secretary has lost his grip.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Following my right hon. Friend's statement and after careful consideration by Ministers, the decision was made to take the steps that I announced to the House on 25 January. In all the subsequent discussion, it has become clearer and clearer, rather than the reverse, that that decision was absolutely right.
The conditions and objectives that we set ourselves—first, the absolute guarantee of non-disturbance and non-disruption of GCHQ, secondly, the absolute guarantee of non-intrusion by reference to industrial tribunals, thirdly, the availability of a staff association, the officers of which owe their obligations to those employed at GCHQ, and not to any outside organisation and, finally, as a result of all that, the removal of any conflict between the loyalty to the state, honourably discharged thus far at GCHQ, and some other, outside loyalty—remain absolutely crucial. They are objectives which the certificates that I have issued were designed to achieve. We have not been persuaded, and it has not been suggested, that those objectives can be fulfilled in any other way.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that "TV Eye" had to apologise for misrepresenting the views of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury? Is it not the case, and does not this matter most to the workers concerned, that no one need fear that he will lack either a job or redundancy?
Will my right hon. and learned Friend also confirm that the Prime Minister will be meeting the unions again? If so, would not a little restraint and patience be in order on the Opposition Benches or should not Opposition Members at least get their act together and make up their minds whether they are genuinely indignant or wish to treat this important matter affecting the security of the nation as a joke?

Mr. Michael Cocks: The Foreign Secretary is the joke.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) is absolutely right. As has already been made clear, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be meeting the trade union representatives again, following the meeting that we held on Wednesday. The terms available to the people employed at GCHQ are exactly as I have described them, with the options that I have described. It is indeed the case that the question put to me on television last night gave a totally misleading impression of what my hon. Friend the Minister of State said in the House yesterday, and I have received an apology for that.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: In view of the statements that have already been made and the Foreign Secretary's statements on television last night, will he confirm that the no-strike clause offer is and will remain non-negotiable? If that is so, will the Foreign Secretary explain to the House, in view of all the statements that have been made, the basis on which he was able to offer £1,000 to any trade unionist who withdrew his trade union membership? For what reason was that compensatory payment offered?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The compensatory payment was offered because, as a result of the certificate issued on 25 January and the changes in conditions of service then being implemented, a change was taking place and certain statutory rights were being withdrawn from those


employed at GCHQ. It was thought right, and I see no reason to doubt the judgment, to offer compensation of that order to those affected.
As for the no-strike agreement, the hon. Member misunderstands the importance and nature of what is required at GCHQ. What is universally acknowledged to be required is 24-hour reliability, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year—reliability that GCHQ will be free from disruption of any kind and free from the threats of disruption or conflicts of loyalty being placed on the people who work there. It was just that conflict of loyalty which was created by the action taken on the day of action in 1981 and it is because of that conflict of loyalty that measures of this kind are necessary. It is for just that reason that the power to issue certificates finds a place on the statute book.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept that this sad affair exemplifies the need for the establishment by the House of a small Select Committee of suitably qualified Privy Councillors who can take evidence from appropriate persons, in this case my right hon. and learned Friend as Foreign Secretary, and report to the House? It is an esoteric and all too closed field and our system of parliamentary democracy would be enhanced if we had such a Select Committee to scrutinise it.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend's question raises much wider implications. I shall certainly note what he has said.

Mr. Alfred Dubs: Will the Foreign Secretary explain why, following successive announcements by Ministers, civil servants who were not union members at Cheltenham are now rushing to join trade unions?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have no evidence that any such rush is taking place. It is clear that the reasons underlying the decision taken by the Government and announced by me on 25 January are becoming more plainly and widely understood and that the decision is regarded as essential.

Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept that, bearing in mind that in 1981 the Council of Civil Service Unions said that it was not just interested in hampering defence and trading relations, but that its ultimate success depended on that, it would have been the height of irresponsibility for the Government not to have taken the action that they did? The unions have only themselves to blame, as do Opposition Members who encouraged the unions in their attitude.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my hon. Friend points out, that is one of the principal reasons that have moved the Government to act in this way.

Mr. Frank Dobson: Three years later?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As the House has already heard, in 1980 the suggestion of a no-strike agreement was made locally and rejected by the unions. As the House has heard several times, in 1981 it was a deliberate part of union policy to provoke disruption in this crucially sensitive area and that was something on which the unions were prepared to congratulate themselves. It was for that reason that the matter had to receive consideration.

Mr. Dobson: Three years of consideration?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: It was after the avowal of the purposes of GCHQ in May 1983 that it became sensible for us to move as we have.

Mr. Michael Foot: On what date was this supposed conflict of loyalty discovered by the Government? On what date did the Cabinet discuss it? On what date did the Government decide to take action about it? Did they decide, as has been suggested in some quarters, to postpone action for some months, despite the supposed danger to the state, because they thought that it might suit them politically? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give the dates when the Government discovered this great danger to the state and when they took action on the basis of that information?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: There was no question of discovering this great danger to the state. The great danger to the state was avowed, asserted and relied upon by the unions when they were seeking to create disruptive action in GCHQ. That was on the day of action in 1981.

Mr. Dobson: That was three years ago.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The matter has been considered on a number of occasions.

Mr. Dobson: By whom?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: By Ministers collectively.

Mr. Dobson: Not the Cabinet.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made plain in her statements last week, on 12 May last year, when a general election had already been declared but was not taking place, having received the report of the Security Commission on the Prime case, the Prime Minister made a statement on the case. In the course of that statement my right hon. Friend avowed, acknowledged and explained to the House for the first time the functions and purposes of GCHQ. It was only after that that a fresh consideration, which necessarily had to happen after the election, of all these matters occurred in the months after the election and the decision was announced to the House last week.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that the private notice question is specifically about the terms offered to the staff at GCHQ and not a general debate on the matter.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that many who believe that the Government are entirely right to attach the highest priority to national security nevertheless are disturbed by some of the implications of today's statement? Does he accept that it is perfectly possible that many of those who accept his terms will retain a perfectly proper, firm and loyal relationship with their trade union and will still have an inward allegiance to it? Bearing that in mind, will my right hon. and learned Friend consider the prudence of an agreement whereby, although forbidden to take part in trade union activities, it will be possible for them to retain trade union membership?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: That has been considered, of course, but it was thought right and necessary to take the action provided for in the statute by issuing a certificate under the 1975 and 1978 employment protection legislation withdrawing the application of those provisions


from this work in this institution. It was following the precedent plainly established for other intelligence agencies where similar conditions applied.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Is it not totally incredible that if a danger to the state was suspected from 1981 onwards nothing was done until now and that in the meantime, during those three years, no negotiations or discussions took place? Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that, if industrial managements behaved in this way, there would rightly be an uproar about the way in which employees were being treated, their terms of employment being changed unilaterally by diktat? Does not he feel that for those employees who for family reasons, their children's education, and so on, may want to stay in their jobs and remain members of their trade unions it is a disgrace that there should not be compensation?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The position is that those who do not wish to accept the offer of remaining on the present terms and conditions of service have available the option of transfer to suitable alternative employment in accordance with their terms of service. Where that proves impossible, compensation on redundancy terms is available to them. It is only if they decline to accept transfer to an available place that the cessation of employment arises.
In considering yet again the question raised by the hon. Gentleman — the timing and manner in which the decision was taken — there had to be balanced the manifest danger to our security operations of the industrial disruption which took place and was threatened and the danger of avowing this institution which existed until May 1983. It was after that that the matter came up for fresh consideration and, after balancing all the factors very carefully, it was decided to make use of the existing statutory powers in the way in which they had already been applied to other intelligence agencies.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that we are interrupting a very important debate initiated by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I shall allow supplementary questions to continue until half-past 11.

Mr. Hal Miller: Will my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the fact that the TV company apologised for a sloppy if not mischievous piece of journalism—an apology, incidentally, still awaited by some of my hon. Friends for the fabrications, half-truths and ill-fitting photo-montage of the "Panorama" programme on Monday — and the fact that the civil servants concerned are being offered the terms in their contract of alternative employment elsewhere and only in cases of refusal will be without compensation, demonstrate that there are no grounds for the spurious indignation shown by the Opposition and for the quite unjustified attack upon my right hon. and learned Friend?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Those responsible for the television programme concerned with this matter have apologised. Those responsible for the television programme about which my hon. Friend complains have not yet apologised. The contrast may speak for itself.
I cannot repeat too often what is the present position. The people employed at GCHQ have the option of remaining in employment in their present jobs and accepting the compensation which has been offered or the option, in accordance with their existing terms and conditions of service, of alternative jobs, within travelling distance or not as the case may be. If no such suitable alternative jobs can be found, compensation on redundancy terms of a very generous quality is available. It is only if, in face of all those options, they still decline suitable alternative jobs that they themselves terminate their employment. That is a very wide range of options and a very effective and comprehensive range of options. I agree with my hon. Friend that there is no ground for the criticism which has been made.

Mr. John McWilliam: In the three years since the so-called risk to national security first came to light, how many suitable alternative jobs has the right hon. and learned Gentleman been able to identify?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The question has not arisen during that time because there has been no question during that period, under the previous terms of service, of looking for suitable alternative jobs. It is now acknowledged universally that this is the basis upon which the trade unions are now making some of their offers. It is acknowledged universally that the guarantees of uninterrupted, continuous, undisrupted service which the Government require at GCHQ and which were seriously jeopardised and broken in 1981 are essential for national security. It is of the greatest importance that this debate from now on should be conducted upon that common ground.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House until yesterday knew that mobile grades could be required to transfer to different posts or establishments and that if there was a breach in that, many people in the codification authorities, and others, who were having to move because of Hardman, would want to say that this should apply to them as well? Will my right hon. and learned Friend also accept that, as some doubt arose yesterday, it has been characteristically courteous of him to come to the House and make it clear that there has been no change? Is it not right that the Opposition Front Bench should accept that, as there is no change, this narrow issue has been dealt with and that the other issues involved can be considered on another occasion?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was important that this doubt should be resolved and the position made totally plain.

Mr. Alan Williams: Why did not the right hon. and learned Gentleman offer to make a statement?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I was delighted to respond to this private notice question — alert, as always, to clarify these matters by coming to the House. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) is equally important. But if we departed from the principles which I have described and which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) described yesterday — the principles which


apply to mobiles and non-mobiles respectively—there would be very serious consequences elsewhere in the service.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman recognise, even at this stage, that the manner in which this matter was brought to the House originally was reprehensible, disgraceful, belated and without any excuse or explanation that can place any validity on what he has said since?
Does he not recognise, further, that the terms which he has announced today are different from the treatment of people who betrayed our country and were protected by the Establishment?

Mr. Michael Cocks: Blunt again.

Mr. Leadbitter: Since the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to put the polygraph into GCHQ, does he appreciate that there is a very good case for it to be brought here today?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I totally reject that absurd suggestion.

Mr. Dobson: I bet you do.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My statement of 25 January was a statement about the changes being made and the reasons for them. The reasons given were precisely the same as those which have been repeated since, and which I have given today. Those reasons are now universally accepted as essential. There is no question about the need to make those changes in conditions at GCHQ. The case stands absolutely.

Mr. Neil Thorne: In underlining the fact that civil servants who transfer to other posts will be fully entitled to pursue their trade union activities, will my right hon. and learned Friend say whether the trade unions have, in recent negotiations, made any offer to undertake a no-strike agreement elsewhere in the Civil Service of the type found in the United States which several Conservative Members would strongly like in Britain?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: That wider issue has not been raised in the discussions. The discussions have concentrated on the change which applies to GCHQ, which I announced.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: We have listened to the Foreign Secretary's answers. Every one of them, like his first answer, was bland, repetitive and utterly unconvincing as a response to the questions that have been asked. Worse, they have all been a complete evasion of the real issue at stake in the matter which my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) raised.
The Foreign Secretary speaks of merely applying conditions which apply to every civil servant, but in GCHQ Cheltenham there is no closure, no reduction, no redundancy, no promotion, no demotion and none of the conditions and circumstances which are covered by the usual arrangements for mobile grades in the Civil Service. Severance pay and conditions arise only because the Government are forcing the civil servants involved to surrender their civil rights. We now discover that, if they do not surrender those civil rights, they will lose their financial rights, their careers and their standing in the community. That is not a matter of usual practice but one of calculated victimisation of people against whom the Government are using the worst form of financial coercion. It smacks not merely of the dictatorial attitude of which I have accused the Government previously but, in this form, it is despotism—no more, no less.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman has an almost infinite capacity for destroying such occasion as he has by exaggeration and hyperbole. I have never heard such extravagant and unjustified language applied to such events. Of course we care about civil rights. It is because of our concern for them that we attach such importance to the effective uninterrupted operation of this institution. That is why I came to the House to explain the position as I did on 25 January. [Interruption.] It is for that reason that we have made available the options that I have described. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right to say that no redundancies are involved. On the face of it, therefore, the terms of retirement on a redundancy basis should not be available.

Mr. John Evans: Go to the other place.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Because we are anxious to make available a full range of options of the type that I have described, retirement on redundancy terms, in the absence of a suitable alternative job in accordance with the ordinary rules, has been made available. The right hon. Gentleman's case simply will not wash.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We now return to the debate on health and safety at work and Government cuts.

Mr. Alan Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you please confirm that the statement which we have just heard arose not voluntarily but because the Foreign Secretary was dragged here by a private notice question?

Mr. Speaker: I do not need to do that.

Health and Safety at Work

Question again proposed.

Mr. Foot: It was notable that, during our recent exchanges on GCHQ Cheltenham, the spokesman for the Department of Employment withdrew from the Chamber. It would be pleasant to think that that was an act of decency as he did not wish to be present and listen to what was being said. This is an aside in preparation for our continued debate but the shambles and worse than shambles that has occurred about the rights that have been invaded could not have happened if the Department of Employment, which knows something about these matters, had had a representative present when the discussions took place. That is one of the reasons why the Government have got into such a mess.
Apparently, the matter was not discussed at any Cabinet meeting and there was no proper meeting at which the Department of Employment, which has experience in redundancy provisions and proper protection for people who might be dismissed, was represented. The proper standards of the Department of the Employment depend on whether we have a Minister who is prepared to sustain discussions. I have given the Minister the benefit of the doubt and suggested that the Department did not know about these matters. If the Minister tells us that the Department knew all of the implications, the problem is all the graver.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but it would appear that he is still discussing the private notice question. I think he knows that the debate is about health and safety at work and Government cuts.

Mr. Foot: I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I should have thought that there was sufficient latitude in these matters to make such observations, especially because the Minister, as far as I am aware, was not present during the private notice question.
I should not like what I was saying about some of the people who helped to establish the Health and Safety Executive to be miscarried because of an interruption in the debate. Professor Harvey was among those who played a leading part in ensuring that the commission was established. He had great experience in the factory inspectorate and believed that the only way in which his great work could be promoted was by the establishment of such a commission. He and others were eager that we should carry that work forward.
There were three major subjects of debate in the preparation for the commission. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover touched on one. It concerned the way in which treatment was to be accorded to the previous inspectorates. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, the National Union of Mineworkers was deeply worried lest the great advances which it had made in inspection be injured by the new body. We had consultations with the NUM and its advice helped to improve the legislation. Some parts of the Act were devised as a result of the proper system of consultation. My hon. Friend was generous enough to acknowledge that most people who look back on those discussions agree that the combination of the Government making proposals and consulting experienced bodies benefited miners and other workers. We tried to ensure that the best experience in leading industries such as mining should be brought to others.
There were some departmental objections to the Bill. That is why the Labour Government had to give it a high priority to secure it. There was the alkali inspectorate and others which did not want to be included in the new commission. Eventually, because of the inspiration and hard work of John Locke, the different and countervailling interests were brought together and the Bill was presented to the House. It was historic legislation which has benefited the country enormously. One of the matters on which there was strongest opposition from the Tory party was the establishment of proper trade union rights on safety committees. It was an innovation put forward by the Labour Government and by the trade unions which spoke to us about those matters. We should never have been able to establish the Health and Safety Commission on a proper basis without trade union representation on the committees. It was one of the main features of the legislation.
Objections to the introduction of safety regulations and to ensuring that they are properly observed have come not only from employers; there have been trade unionists and workers who have not been immediately ready to go ahead with such schemes. All those objections can be overcome by intelligent consultation which is what the Department of Employment was engaged in. We had no difficulty in reaching agreement with the trade unions, and plainly there was no difficulty with the Labour Benches. The chief difficulty in achieving trade union representation on the commission came from the House of Lords. It produced many objections to the scheme. It has great experience in these matters, as we all appreciate, and fought desperately hard to prevent the introduction of such measures. I believe that the legislation had to be brought back to the House of Commons on two or three occasions to have that feature included in the Act. I should be happy to receive the Minister's confirmation that, despite all the objections that Conservative Members had at that time, trade union representation on the commission is one of the excellent parts of the legislation and one which should be carried forward and built on in the future.
Another matter about which we argued and which held up some of the legislation for a time was its application to agriculture. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover reminded us, some people did not want the legislation applied to agriculture. Chief among those were the landowners. We did not have a majority in the House of Commons and we had difficulty in passing the legislation through here because of Tory objections. When the Bill reached the other place, it was thrown out. The other place had the biggest attendance of landowners that it had had for years when the application of safety measures to agriculture was being discussed. I understand that there was a full House. We were defeated there. We did not have a majority in the House of Commons so we could not get the measure through on that occasion.
On the earliest possible subsequent occassion, we carried through the simple proposition, and it is staggering to think it is only 10 years ago that we were having these controversies, which provided that health and safety measures must be applied to agriculture. One of the reasons why our argument was so powerful was that mechanical methods of agriculture were expanding. A considerable rearguard action was fought for a long time with votes in the House of Lords throwing out those offensive clauses which provided that health and safety measures should apply to people on the land.
I should be grateful to have the Minister's confirmation that the Government fully accept the wisdom that we and the trade unions showed then of saying that this legislation must, of course, be applied to agriculture.
If one studies reports one can see the nature of the accidents on land and that they have been increasing because of the introduction of mechanical methods on a far larger scale than had been contemplated. That is another reason why legislation had to be brought forward and a commission had to be established to cover the whole of industry. One of the main reasons why we wanted to introduce the legislation was that we knew that the developments in different industries were likely to lead to greater danger to people's health and lives. It was therefore all the more necessary to have speedy action and knowledge brought from one section of industry to another to ensure that safety standards should be raised as high as possible. An illustration and confirmation of that need was the Flixborough disaster, in which about 20 people were killed, which happened while we were going ahead with the legislation.
A commission was established and the executive started work. Promises were made. We wanted to see greater resources given to the commission. We did not obtain all the resources that we wanted at the beginning despite the fact that we had given the legislation and the resources a high priority. Everyone knew that resources were an essential factor. We realise that they are not the sole factor. The hon. Member for Banbury said that resources are of little or no importance. No one on the commission who knows anything about the subject would hold such a view. As I shall prove in a moment, the commission has made representations on that point which have been turned down by the Department. There is no doubt that it is necessary to have extra resources.
The most important place to have those extra resources is on the inspectorate. The inspectors have a difficult task. They are not especially welcomed by employers in many factories, and sometimes there are objections from the shop floor. The inspectors have, to some extent, to tread their own path, and sometimes they are not popular in what they do. In my opinion, they are magnificent people who serve the community and industry. They deserve the greatest encouragement. The best encouragement that they could have would be an increase in their numbers. They would then be able to share the work. They know better than anyone that they cannot visit all the factories as regularly as they should. There is work crying out to be done. Far from their work diminishing, it will multiply, perhaps fivefold with all the developments in industry. The Government should be studying the expansion of the inspectorate and its services. That is the way in which the commission had been considering these matters, and why there has been some controversy with the Government over it.
I am not decrying the achievements. I am proud of them. They would not have happened without the establishment of the commission incorporating the principles I have mentioned. No one can deny that. We have every right to be proud of the legislation. As Simpson said in his report, there has been a 30 per cent. reduction in the number of fatal accidents in the nine years since the Act came into operation. There has been a slight turn for the worse during the past year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover properly noted, but that does not

alter the fact that there has been a considerable improvement in the number of fatal and serious accidents during the period.
The main reason for that improvement is that the health and safety legislation took the experience of what had happened in the pits and elsewhere and applied it to the 5 million workers who had never been covered by health and safety legislation before. It was a great advance and reform, and the figures prove that the legislation was successful. It could and should have been much more successful.
The figures, which showed the substantial reduction in fatal accidents as a result of the work of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive, should have encouraged the Government to increase resources, not diminish them, particularly when the loss of working days through accident and illness in most industrial countries is huge. There are 16 million working days lost every year through accident and illness. That is far greater than any loss from industrial disputes. Great advances can be made. That is proven by the fact that great advances have been made over the past nine years.
One would have thought that any Government looking at such figures would respond to what is happening, particularly when they are told by the Health and Safety Commission some of the facts and how it has been able to carry out its duties only because of the recession. If it were not for the recession, it would be covering fewer factories. Those facts are in the report. It is not the biased view of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. It is in the report presented to the Department of Employment, which shows that the commission's coverage of industries would have been much more limited if it had not been for the recession. Presumably one day we shall recover from the recession, so there is all the more need for greater resources.
Some exchanges about the matter took place in the Tebbit regime. On 3 March 1983 there was a headline in
The Guardian:
Further staff cuts imperil safety laws, Tebbit warned.
The hon. Member for Banbury tried to deride my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover for connecting the amount of cash with the number of people who have been killed or injured. My hon. Friend is not alone in making that connection. It is made by those who know the most about the matter. The report was written on behalf of the commission by Mr. Brian Martin, the director of the commission's resources and planning division. He knows something about these matters. This leaked document, sent to the Department of Employment, got into The Guardian. It did not get as much attention as some other leaked documents, I am sad to say, but I hope that it will have more now. Mr. Martin said:
We now have in total just over 3,700 staff in post—a reduction of 13 per cent. since 1979 as compared with an average reduction of under 11 per cent. in the Civil Service as a whole.
We have continued to provide a basic level of service to the public despite this very substantial reduction in our resources. This has only been possible, however, because of the effects of the recession and because several pieces of major legislation have not come into force as quickly as had been expected.
Even this Government have had to introduce particular measures for new industries. The background is that the commission said that it must have more resources to do its job properly, and the Government said something


different. A reply was sent by the then Secretary of State, who is now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to Mr. Bill Simpson. The Guardian reported:
Mr. Tebbit asked for the 5 and 10 per cent. reviews in January"—
that was January 1983. The Secretary of State's letter said:
I do recognise that consideration of these issues will impose a further burden on the Commission and the HSE. But I am sure you will agree that it is important that we should continue our progress in realising reductions in Civil Service manpower where this is possible.
I should be glad if the Minister told me exactly how many reductions have been made since that letter was sent. A great protest was made at the time. Perhaps we blocked some of the reductions that the Government proposed and defended in the letter to the commission. I should like to have the exact figures.
The claim about Civil Service manpower and the totals is a disreputable business, particularly when in so many areas it is only a matter of book-keeping. When the Manpower Services Commission was set up, we were told that a great reduction in Civil Service manpower would take place. The MSC was established before we took over. We did not want to do away with it because we believed that it would be foolish to tear to pieces an operation that had only just been started. However, it is a ridiculous piece of book-keeping to say that people who work for the MSC are not civil servants and therefore do not figure in the Civil Service list, whereas those who previously worked for the Department of Employment were.
If one cuts the number of civil servants inspecting factories, one increases the total of deaths and accidents in the workplace, now running at 16 million. There is a sharp connection between the scale of the inspections and the scale of accidents. If one cuts the number of people in the inspectorate, which has been done, and damages the way in which the inspectors do their jobs, more people are threatened and may be involved in the accidents that we are seeking to avoid.
I hope that the Minister will not defend the miserable, squalid cuts that he and his Government have already imposed on the Health and Safety Commission. I hope that he will tell us that he is prepared to give millions of pounds in an increased allocation over the next few years. It should be a substantial increase. I hope also that that figure will be translated into more inspectors and inspections and that he will relate it to the scale of industry that they will have to cover.
It is a great advantage that we should have this debate regularly. We in the Opposition are determined to do so. We want to check exactly how the commission that we set up is being operated, how much it is being sustained by the Government and what more can be done. No one can doubt that new areas of British industry will be established over the next decade where the commission's work will be more essential than ever. Just as we fought to get the commission into operation and to save lives by doing so, we are determined to fight for the resources to enable the commission to do its job.

Mr. Patrick Nicholls: I have spoken in many Friday debates. One of the reasons why I have always enjoyed speaking on a Friday is that more often than not the debate is about subjects on which both sides

of the House agree. Often the means to achieve that end are different, but at least we have been able to agree on the means.
Many of our constituents complain that when they listen to "Yesterday in Parliament" we sound like a disorganised rabble. That is probably because of the heckling. Friday debates must come as a comfort to them as they hear hon. Members, usually at their best, talking about things that unite them rather than things that disunite them.
When I saw the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), I thought that hon. Members could agree on the end. I suspected that the hon. Gentleman would launch an attack on the resources devoted to the Health and Safety Executive. I thought that that attack could be countered. Perhaps in my naivety I did not expect that he would not simply say that the Government have not devoted sufficient resources to it—Conservative Members often say such things, too—but would suggest that anyone who employs labour does so with callous disregard for the wellbeing of the work force and that it does not matter to the employer whether his work force is injured, maimed or killed, provided that he can turn a pretty penny in the process. That attitude is as wrong as it is insulting.
I wish that the hon. Gentleman could for one moment abandon the sour and sterile rhetoric of the class war and consider, when he says that he champions the working classes, for whom they are voting. The people for whom they are voting are not Opposition Members, but Conservative Members. That illustrates as graphically as anything how wholly out of date is his class war rhetoric.
The saddest thing of all is that when Labour Members will not even give my hon. Friends and me credit—if they want to adduce the argument in this way — for incompetently wanting to do our best, it means that at the end of the day they are not championing the working classes, whoever they may be, but utterly insulting them. They are saying, in other words, that they are so craven, stupid and duped that they will keep on voting in a Conservative Government. If I had such a low opinion of the people I represent I would get out of the country quickly, and I suppose that it would be a matter for individual choice whether I decided to go east or west. On a subject of this importance, one hoped to hear something more important than a diatribed which owed everything to "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthopists" and drew nothing from what had happened since.
It may be said that lawyers do not have a great deal of experience of accidents at work. However, at the time when the hon. Member for Bolsover was enjoying his privileged education at Oxford—I fear that I could not partake of education there—I had started in law and was spending a great deal of time investigating factory accidents. The hon. Gentleman might not realise that, even in the west country, there is a fair degree of industrialisation, and that that is certainly the position in Cornwall.
I was finding in the early 1960s and late 1970s as I was investigating factory accidents that workers were—if not regularly, then far too often—injuring themselves. They were damaging their hands in milling machines, losing fingers and sometimes even worse, and when they were not operating dangerous machinery one could see, as even the hon. Member for Bolsover said—it was possibly one point that was worth while making in an hour's work — that even when using something like a ladder the


most appalling injuries could result if people did not realise the way in which basic equipment such as that should be operated.

Mr. Skinner: I had better put the record straight before some of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends repeat what he said about my having received a privileged education at Oxford. I attended a short parliamentary course at Ruskin in 1966, and probably thousands of others have attended similar courses. I did not go to any of the colleges there, however, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the context in which I happened to be at Oxford for a short period at that time.

Mr. Nicholls: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having gone to Oxford. When I say that I envy him, I do not say that in a Socialist sense of begrudging him. I am simply pointing out that, at the time when he was at one of our great learning institutions, I was doing the sort of work of which he was speaking, investigating factory accidents and doing something practical to help the people whom he seeks to champion.
It came across clearly to me when doing that work that it was often management and work force who did not realise how conscious one must be of the types of accidents and dangers that work forces encounter. Even if, as a lawyer, it might not seem that I have much acquaintance in a practical way with this subject, I assure hon. Members that I do. Further, I assure Labour Members that I and many of my hon. Friends do not need lessons in how to be concerned about people who run risks of the sort that occur in an industrial context.

Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman is in a closed shop.

Mr. Nicholls: I shall come to our general approach to health and safety legislation, but first I want to comment on how it can apply to the youth training scheme, because although Labour Members have been wise enough not to raise that issue today, they refer to it in some of their more unguarded moments. They say that in the youth training scheme, in particular, people are very much at risk, and that is an accusation which should be answered.
We are aware of how, after the 1972 Robens report, the apparatus came about and came to be used. It has been suggested that one can attack the way in which the Government can be said to be responsible for the operation of the legislation by discussing the number of people employed as a result of it, and it is true that those numbers have fallen. In 1979 the HSE was employing 4,117 people, and by 1984, 3,577 were employed. It is simplistic in the extreme, but typical of those who say it, to suggest that if fewer people were employed, less good must have been done. "Employ more people and more good will be done", they say.
There are two basic reasons why that argument cannot be true. First—the hon. Member for Bolsover, who has left the Chamber, mentioned this point, if only to deride it — the systems that one can now use by way of computer-based predictions of where the real areas of need are at least ensure that resources can be placed where they are most needed. In a sense one could say that that is a degree of means-testing, but it is means-testing in a sensible way, for what on earth would be the point of employing vast numbers of people to visit industrial work places where, because of the nature of the work being done, there was virtually no possibility of a serious

accident occurring? That would be a great way to spend other people's money, but it would not do anything to protect the people about whom we should be worrying. Thus, to be able to use modern computer systems to work out where resources can be used most effectively is the right way to proceed.
Since 1972 there has been a complete change in the industrial pattern. When the HSE was formed, it was projected—it was only a projection—that in 1975 there would be 750,000 premises employing 17 million people which would fall to the factory inspectorate. In 1982 the inspectorate was responsible for about 475,000 premises employing 15 million people. That tells its own story.
In a similar way, even from the point of view of the mines and quarries inspectors, although the numbers employed fell, the number per employee rose over a long period. In 1962 there were 3,773 employees per mines and quarry inspector, and by 1982 that had come down to 2,427. My point is that one cannot simply say, "Reduce the numbers and the benefit is reduced". The resources available must be used properly.
All of that in the end should be reflected in the figures relating to fatalities, serious accidents and other injuries. It is no good the hon. Member for Bolsover deriding the fact that there has been a reduction. If there had been an increase he would have been only too keen to take up another hour of the time of the House to point that out. It is, therefore, fair to consider the figures. In terms of fatal accidents—this is in relation to accidents per 100,000 employees—in 1978 the figure was 3·2 and in 1982 it was 2·3. It must be said that in 1981 the figure had fallen to 2·1, but the fact remains that the underlying trend is going in the direction that we all want to see, and that is down.
The same can be said for major injuries, although the point can be most dramatically made by looking at the figures for other injuries as well. For example, between 1978 and 1982, per 100,000 employees, there were 2,600, 2,420, 2,070, 2,000 and 1,830 accidents in those years. What comes out of the figures absolutely incontrovertibly is—

Mr. Greville Janner: That they are all wrong.

Mr. Nicholls: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman care to explain that interruption?

Mr. Janner: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, while all statistics are basically untrue, those that concern accidents at work are provably untrue because the methods of collecting those statistics have altered year by year, so that even the Health and Safety Commission admits that there is really no way in which one can know the true figures, and that that will become even more difficult in future years because they are about to change again?

Mr. Nicholls: What the hon. and learned Gentleman says about statistics simply means that he disagrees with the statistics that I use because they do not support his case. If he had statistics which supported his case, I am sure that he would trot them out at great length. I agree that statistics do not always tell the whole story and that they must be qualified. I deliberately did not quote the figures of major injuries, because I concede that the basis has changed, but it is nevertheless fair to say that, on those figures, which are accurate so far as they go, there has


been a reduction. As I say, I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman would have quoted other figures at me if he thought that they would support his case.

Mr. John Evans: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in 1982 there was an increase in the number of fatal injuries in the construction and manufacturing industries? Given the appalling decline in those two industries, that is a remarkable comment on the figures which the hon. Gentleman has just produced for the House.

Mr. Nicholls: I am happy to repeat that in 1981 there was an increase in fatalities generally, and I do not believe that any hon. Member would treat that lightly. It is, nevertheless, true that there has been a decrease in fatalities over a sustained period. That does not mean that we should be complacent, but it is a fact that the hon. Gentleman must acknowledge. I do not know whether he will do so.
Inevitably, as I come from a rural constituency I am especially worried about accidents in rural areas. I do not believe that anyone who has not had such an agricultural background can understand how dangerous the farm can be. The figures tell only part of the story. Not one farmer would deny that there can be accidents—for example, when tractors roll over — which never reach the statistics. Often they are not reported because the accident was a narrow miss.
Although I acknowledge that the farm is a dangerous place, again the figures show sustained improvement in the number of fatalities. In 1970–71 there were 137 fatalities and by 1980–81 there were 74 fatalities. The worst aspect of those figures is that in 1980–81 there were 23 children among those fatalities. I hope that the Minister can provide an assurance that he is satisfied that the number of health and safety inspectors employed in the agricultural sphere is sufficient. It may be that the HSE has planned other initiatives for use in the agricultural area, and I should be especially grateful if the Minister would say something about that.
It is probably fair to say that the present youth training scheme is well regulated, well run, and appreciated by employers and the people who undergo training and by the more responsible sectors of the trade union movement. It owed a certain amount to organised chaos in the way it evolved from STEP, YOP and WEP. I believe that in its early days there was concern that the trainees did not receive the full benefit of the law under the health and safety regulations. I believe that all trainees would have been covered under one section or another of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974. Perhaps that was a subject for some debate. If it is a subject for debate, it must also be a matter of anxiety. I welcome the fact that we now have the Health and Safety (Youth Training Scheme) Regulations 1983, which put the matter beyond doubt.
I did not come to speak today to say that I could not imagine any other steps that the Government could take to improve health and safety conditions. More can be done. Clearly, we would all want to have drawn up a list of worthy causes promoting the benefits of the legislation, but it does no good to anyone to decry what has been done. What has been achieved under the legislation is remarkable. To suggest that all we must do is pile more money on the problem and make fatuous analogies about triple glazing in the Falklands and ask why we cannot

apply the same measure to Willesden does not play any part in our deliberations. I applaud the Government for what they have done and assure them that I shall be watching to ensure that their good work continues in the same vein.

Mr. Don Dixon: It is normal procedure to follow the arguments of the previous speaker, but having listened to part of the speech of the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) I found that three-quarters of it was used to deride my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who had the initiative to propose the debate. My hon. Friend should not be derided, but should have the congratulations of the House for bringing such an important issue to the Floor of the House. I shall pass on those congratulations to him. There is nothing oafish about having a debate on health and safety at work, especially when it includes hon. Members who have worn a pair of overalls and seen health and safety from the industrial side not from the court room, as was said by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), who admitted that he is a lawyer.
I declare an interest as a sponsored member of the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union. I have no doubt that many of my hon. Friends are sponsored members of unions, and this is an issue in which they are interested. Most unions have fought hard and long for many years to achieve adequate safety regulations, and that is not simple to do.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) talked about the House of Lords safety committees. I have served on a safety committee with my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans). I was called out of the safety committee in Hawthorn Leslie's shipyard, and, with 24 hours' notice, was given the sack. Employers do not have to worry about picketing, but merely pick up a phone and ensure that a former employee does not get another job in the industry for many months. I fought for improved conditions in the shipyards. I had experience of conditions there and did not pontificate, as do some hon. Members from the legal profession.
I had to leave the Chamber before my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover finished his speech — and I apologise — because I had to take a deputation to see another Minister. I do not know whether my hon. Friend used the figures that I shall use, but they are worth repeating. Each year, 700 people die because of accidents. About 275,000 suffer serious accidents at work and each year 900 die after industrial diseases. Despite those figures, the Government have cut the factory inspectorate, not because there is no work for the inspectors, but because of a ministerial diktat that expenses had to be cut irrespective of whether they were necessary. That is the reason why my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover was so vindictive about the Government's policy.
In an earlier intervention I mentioned that when the health and safety regulations were introduced in 1974 it was promised that there would be a 50 per cent. increase in the number of inspectors. That promise was repeated in July 1979 by the Tory Government. In fact, the reverse has happened, in spite of the need for an increased number of inspectors.
It is no good the House passing legislation to protect people if it does not provide the resources to enable those


laws to be carried out. That is the reason for the debate. My union called for an extra 21 field inspectors—one for each region—to help the understaffed construction inspectors to cope. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North said that fatalities in the construction industry had increased. No new inspectorate resources are being assigned to the problem of asbestosis, which for many years has afflicted those involved in the construction, shipbuilding and other industries. Without adequate enforcement, the new laws will be a licence to kill and will merely legitimise some of the cowboys who are not worried about safety regulations.
There has been a shift in the policy of the Health and Safety Executive. More inspectors spend time on policy than on enforcement. In the Yorkshire region there was a switch of two experienced field inspectors from enforcement to service in an asbestos manufacturing weighing group, which is doing valuable work, but they have not been replaced in the field. Will the Minister assure us that field inspectors who are switched from policy areas are replaced in the field? That is important. When shall we hear that the inspectors are coming back to the Yorkshire region after being switched away from it as a result of the policy change?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent referred to the fact that pathetic fines and no gaol sentences have been imposed for murdering and maiming people. On the very day when the National Graphical Association was fined £50,000 for breaking a ridiculous law, two employers were fined an average of £1,000 apiece for negligence resulting in the death of employees.
In relation to hazardous work there has been a change of emphasis from the effective "safe work place" to the ineffective "safe worker" basis. It is no use simply issuing posters about noise hazards to stick on factory walls if noise levels in the workshop are 100 decibels or more. It reminds one of the propaganda posters during the war about walls having ears. We need effective enforcement.
We recently spent an hour and a half late at night debating EEC proposals on noise abatement suggesting a maximum permitted noise level of 85 decibels. That would affect 1,700,000 workers in the United Kingdom. The 90-decibel limit suggested by the Minister and being taken on board by the HSE would affect only 700,000. That decision seems to have been taken on a purely financial basis.

Mr. Gummer: indicated dissent.

Mr. Dixon: The Minister disagrees. I give him credit for having taken a great interest in this problem. I have attended functions at which he has spoken sincerely and well on the subject.
I have a medal for 30 years service in the shipyards — a hearing aid. Like thousands of people in heavy industry, I suffer from industrial deafness. I was therefore sorry that the Government did not accept the EEC view, and I was appalled at some of the arguments used by Conservative Back Benchers. The Minister at least showed more sympathy than some of his hon. Friends.
I hope that the Minister will agree to withdraw that part of the secret instructions sent to inspectors in September which states that
where engineering controls are considered reasonably practicable, but the employer has opted for the provision of ear protection, further enforcement action should not be considered … provided the protection is effective and worn in noisy areas.

That is a blatant example of failure to enforce the law properly and contradicts the letter of the Department's 1972 code of practice as well as the spirit of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act and the policy of the Health and Safety Executive.
The job of the inspectors is to remove hazards at source whenever it is reasonable to do so. There has been a change of emphasis. One might almost think that pressure had been put on the Minister by a Society for the Deafening of Workers. Will the Minister assure the House that the emphasis on "practicable" measures in the Factories Act will not be replaced by the weaker "reasonably practicable" requirements of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act? Section 1(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act was included specifically to prevent that happening, but it has already happened in respect of regulations about lead and is now part of the draft provisions on asbestosis and hazardous substances. I have no doubt that other hon. Members will refer to that later in the debate.
Why has the Health and Safety Executive only just got round to enforcing the Health Safety at Work etc. Act and the 1972 code on noise? Between 1975 and 1982, only 101 notices were issued under the Act—11 per year for the entire country. In view of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered noisy conditions and now suffer from industrial deafness, that is a disgrace.
The GMBATU which is my union, and the AUEW—that of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North—have taken the lead in the fight against noise and for adequate compensation when protection has not been provided. We were appalled at the Newcastle judgment awarding paltry sums to people who had lost their hearing.
One of the problems in this country is that it is difficult to discover the extent of the disease of deafness because people do not like to admit that they suffer from it. The blind have white sticks and dark glasses, but the deaf do not like to admit their disability. I am the same. I tend to keep my hearing aid in my pocket. I do not use it in the Chamber, because although we are in the 20th century the Chamber has no link system so that hearing aids can be used. If I try to use mine, I overhear all the muttered comments by hon. Members when others are speaking and one does not like to hear such things. In my area we set up a hard of hearing group but it was disbanded because people would not come to it although many thousands of people in the area suffered from deafness. People do not like to admit it, so the disease has been hidden for many years. It is time that employers recognised it.
I hope that another EEC suggestion will be taken up. If people become blind, employers do not simply sack them and put them on the street. They try to find them other jobs. There is little sympathy from employers when people become deaf. The EEC suggests that any worker removed from a job due to deafness should, if possible, be given alternative employment. Very little effort is made by employers in that context, although there is great sympathy for people who become blind.
That is the kind of development that we wish to see. The entire 1984 report of the Health and Safety Commission contains just one small paragraph about industrial deafness. The problem is that it does not have the resources to deal with the matter. I do not say that all employers are bad. Some employers are concerned, because it is in their interests that employees do not suffer


from sickness or accident. An examination of the records in this country will confirm that for many years many more days have been lost through sickness and acccident than through strikes. Some employers are concerned, but unfortunately some are not. It reminds them of the old saying about a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. It all depends whether one is giving or receiving it. This is one of the arguments that we used to use when negotiating with the employers in the shipyards which the House debated earlier this week. I recall what used to happen in the shipyards when they were in private hands. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North will recall what used to happen. To give an example, I worked as a shipwright in the yard. One of our jobs was to put steel plates together on the shell of a ship, after which the welder would weld them. To do that we used to weld a steel lug about 1·5 in wide and gins thick on to the steel plate. We were not allowed to have gloves to wear when holding the lugs.
That was the practice in the late 1960s. It was necessary to go to several conferences to get an industrial glove to wear when holding a lug on a steel plate. Those were the sorts of employers that we were dealing with. Not all employers are enlightened. In fact, most employers have to be enlightened by strong trade unions in their establishments. I used to go home every night with septic burns. That is the kind of situation that prevailed in the shipyards at that time. It is tragic that we would go back to those days if the Government carried out their policy.
On the question of noise, provision has existed to enable preventive action to be taken since 1945, but unfortunately not much action has been taken. Can the Minister assure the House that the new enforcement action will take into account noise levels between 80 and 90 decibels, and not just above 90 decibels? Most people suffer deafness at between 80 and 90 decibels.
The Health and Safety Executive has made no attempt to estimate the size of the occupational disease problem, despite the conclusion of the Robens report 12 years ago. The indications are that about 30 per cent. of all ill health and disease is work-related. That was the conclusion of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, a United States Government body, for which there is no effective United Kingdom equivalent.
The available United Kingdom statistics suggest that the United States estimate is not wildly wrong. For example, there are more deaths from prescribed diseases — and this grossly underestimates the real problem, according to the Pearson commission—than from fatal accidents at work. Conservative estimates put the number of occupational cancer deaths at between 1,200 and 7,000 a year. United Kingdom and United States surveys indicate that approximately 20 per cent. of respiratory disease, 13 per cent. of heart disease and 13 per cent. of mental disease are attributable to work, and these are problems in areas where the Health and Safety Executive needs additional resources. At present, the resources of the HSE are insufficient to enable it to carry out its work. When I was speaking to a member of the Health and Safety Executive, he said that it was possible to visit only one in seven factories. That means an inspection once in every seven years, which is inadequate. That is why we maintain that more resources are required.
It is no good the Minister putting forward the argument that, because fewer people are working as a result of the Government's policies and are on the dole, there is no need for the same number of factory inspectors. When big firms with effective trade union-backed safety committees and trade union-trained safety committees are closed, it results in those recalcitrant employers who are not particularly worried taking heed of the regulations. However, when the big firms are closed and replaced by small cowboy firms which are not interested in safety, more, and not fewer, inspectors are needed. This point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover.
Can the Minister also assure the House that the follow-up survey of bladder cancer tragedy in the dyestuffs industry, which has claimed at least 500 lives, and which the Ministry and the chemical industry promised 30 years ago, is being carried out this year, as requested by the trade unions, Professor Fox and Professor Case?
I shall conclude because I know that many of my hon. Friends wish to make important points. In fairness to the Health and Safety Executive, I should say that it is doing its best with the resources provided by the Government. We want the Minister to agree to provide more resources so that it can do its job more effectively.
There is a lesson which we urge employers to learn. Some 150 years ago the House debated the first factory reform legislation. The Government should pay heed to the words of Macauley, who, 10 years after opposing factory reform, recanted with the words:
Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger, and healthier and wiser and better can ultimately make it poorer.
Those are the sentiments that we want to hear from the Minister. We need more resource for the Health and Safety Executive.

Mr. Lewis Stevens: I must disappoint Opposition Members by informing them that I have no association with the legal profession—I am an engineer. The only point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is on the importance of the House debating health and safety at work. I find it difficult to accept his latter points when he tried to make the issue one of conflict rather than of co-operation. If there is one area that benefits trade unions, employees and management alike, it is in keeping employees healthy and free from accidents at work. It is not a matter of confrontation.
As the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said, much of what came about following the 1974 Act was through the discussion and involvement of trade unions and management. That is essential if there are to be good work practices, and it is not a matter of contention or argument.
Few major employers do not want to work with safety committees. When the Act came into force in 1974, it was not that employers did not wish to be involved, but rather that there was great apprehension about the Act not only covering accidents within the workplace, but placing responsibility for them on those who designed the equipment. Those problems have since been resolved.
There has been a growth in the number of successful health and safety committees, and industry after industry has benefited from that. Not many years ago most companies, especially large ones, were prepared to provide safety equipment, but many employees did not use it. For example, there is great danger in operating grinding


wheels, yet not long ago anyone walking into a factory would find that some of the work force was not wearing goggles. Although supervisors and shop stewards told them to wear them, they would not do so. That does not happen much today. The Act and the actions that followed it have improved the awareness of safety in industry. People now recognise that they should wear protective clothing and take sensible precautions.
Many accidents are not major catastrophes, but are silly, simple things. People may trip over something, or the floor may be dangerous and someone may slip and break his leg. However, great improvements have also been made there. The 1972 Robens report stressed the responsibility that rested with employers and employees for the risks that exist. It pointed out that it was they who had the most to gain by reducing risk and by taking sensible measures. Indeed, companies and employees have often done just that.
The Opposition have suggested that the great advance hoped for has not been made, but that is to adopt a very pessimistic view. Things have improved, and throughout the past nine years there has been co-operation between the unions and management. Other things too have happened in industry. The Robens report was published 11 or 12 years ago. In the intervening period, and certainly since the Act came into force, we have introduced new technology and new products. There have been a number of changes in organisation, which has automatically resulted in improvements in safety at work.
We now design machines and equipment using as one of the main criteria the requirement that they must be safe. We use many failsafe devices, which, again, help. We cannot do some of the things that we used to do that led to injuries at work. In industries which use presses, many setter operators had a joint missing from one of their fingers, not because they did not know what they were doing, but because it was possible to wedge the press open when they were doing some setting. Today, much more care is taken.
There have also been advances in the electrical world. Instead of having loads of wires that have to be soldered, and instead of someone going up in smoke because he has touched the wrong one, the microchip and printed circuit boards have meant that such dangers have been removed and that time has also been saved, which is of advantage to the companies involved. Such work is now simpler and easier.
The movement of goods and materials in engineering and other industries automatically leads to risk. Every time someone picks something up or tries to move it, there is a risk factor. However, automation has reduced the need to pick up things. The use of robots sometimes makes it possible for that whole process to be done from start to finish. Consequently, the risk of accident is reduced. In addition, pallets are now used more. For example, bricks are put on pallets and a jib crane is used to take those pallets off the lorries. There are much better handling techniques which prevent certain back injuries which were once commonplace. I know that many jokes are made about people with back trouble, but that was once a big problem. However, the incidence of back injuries has now been considerably reduced.
There is a low incidence of accidents in offices. Nevertheless, action has also been taken in that regard, and the use of the computer has made it possible to transfer information automatically, thus avoiding the need for

people to take pieces of paper all over the place. Thus, there is less movement, less filing and less picking up and putting down of items. That has helped to reduce the number of accidents.
Many companies are successful in running the health and safety committees and that should, and has, removed some of the workload from the factory inspectorate. The many changes in practices have also led to more recognition of the things that are likely to be dangerous. Not many years ago doors and gangways in a factory were likely to be blocked by people working or by trucks and stillages. However, as the safety representatives have worked conscientiously, it is nowadays more likely that something will be done. That self-regulation has played an important part in the benefits that we have seen.
The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) expressed doubts about statistics. I think that it is right to be dubious at times. However, a release from the Health and Safety Executive in September 1983 stated:
Total injuries show a reduction in all sectors between 1981 and 1982 … This reduction continues the previously noted long-term downward trend in overall reported injuries: though comparison with pre-1983 figures need to be treated with caution.
The number of accidents has been reduced. We have benefited from the co-operation of those in industry. However, there are some areas in which that co-operation has not been easy to achieve. For example, it is easy to achieve within a compact work force where small groups or teams work together—generally the ability to appoint safety representatives and a monitoring programme is relatively easy—but as a work force disperses over a wide area into smaller groups control of it becomes more difficult, as does self-regulation.
The Act places a tremendous onus on individuals to look after themselves. Dispersal of a work force leads to one or two people working together away from any real supervision. Often they are skilled men who can get on with the job conscientiously. If they decide to take short cuts and adopt unsafe practices, it is difficult for anyone to be directly responsible. If two people work together and one is considerably more experienced than the other, it is unlikely that the more experienced man will report that his colleague is using unsafe practices.
We all know that familiarity breeds contempt. We know that it is not only the inexperienced who are injured. Injury often befalls very skilled workers who know that they can take a short cut and save time. That does not happen in nine cases out of 10. It does not happen, perhaps, in 999 out of 1,000 cases, but on the one occasion beyond that we have an accident that is often serious, and sometimes even fatal.
These problems arise in smaller units. It is not always possible to set up health and safety committees within them, and there is not always the required degree of specialisation. Very often, people will muck in and help one another. One may be qualified to do that, and used to doing it, while the assistant, for example, may not be so well qualified. As a consequence, there is a danger of injury. That happens when people are not properly trained for their work. As I have said, there are not enough people with the necessary degree of specialisation. In many instances there is not a sufficient need felt, or the necessary money, to enter into considerable investment in material-handling equipment. Small units have distinct problems.
It cannot be denied that many small organisations are not aware of their responsibilities. I hope that the Health and Safety Executive and the Minister will try to ensure that small organisations are helped to have a better realisation of safety requirements. They must realise that they are not the subject of a witch hunt. Those who are in charge of small units are even more dependent on the individuals who work for them than large companies. They know that there is no substitute at that moment. The smaller companies and smaller units have peculiar needs.
In many instances, training within small units is more important than within large organisations. Often there is not so much knowledge and expertise within the smaller undertakings. Many larger organisations have induction training and machine training, for example, and they undertake their training extremely well. Small units cannot offer those facilities and, therefore, the training is not done. I believe that the importance of health and safety should be pushed at workers continuously throughout the training initiatives which the Government have taken. Health and safety, even in a basic form, should constantly be brought to the attention of both employers and employees. The trend has been improving in recent years. We cannot be complacent, but we must recognise that there are limits to what ought to be done by inspectors and industry.
There are much greater risks in some industries than in others. The likelihood of accidents is 10 times greater in the mining and quarrying industry than it is in distributive trades. The high-risk industries are conscious of the problems and take tremendous care. They have not been able to reduce the number of accidents as much as they would like, and we would not expect them to be able to do so, but they must develop their efforts.
Overall, I am relatively satisfied with the general arrangements for the HSE. They are sound and we are moving in the right direction. It is right that the executive should be efficient and if more can be done for less, that will be all to the good. The Government are already devoting substantial resources to this area.
I ask the Minister and the HSE to remain conscious that smaller organisations need to be helped. Throughout people's training they must be made conscious of the need to work properly with safe practices.
It may be said that the fears and apprehensions that accompanied the 1974 Act have disappeared, but the impetus has also been lost and we need to put more zest into our efforts to stress the need for safer working practices. But, as the Robens report said, self-regulation by individuals and employers is paramount.

Mr. Derek Fatchett: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on initiating what has proved to be a useful and instructive debate. He was right to emphasise an important freedom in industry—the freedom to enjoy a safe place of work. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that that important freedom is denied to many people; it is denied to the 400,000 people who were injured and the 468 people who were killed at work in 1982. It is denied to those who work in the construction industry where an accident takes place every three minutes of the working day.
I speak with personal experience, because my father, who worked in the construction industry, suffered an industrial injury and was off work for nine months. It says a lot about the attitude of employers that during that time he received no occupational sick pay and no payment from his employer. My father had to rely on state benefits and he received only £200 in compensation. That sort of attitude to workers divides the House and I have personal experience of that attitude. Therefore, I speak strongly about safety at work.
The picture is profoundly disturbing. Conservative Members have said that the answer to the problem lies in self-regulation and individual responsibility. They are right to say that that was the cornerstone of the Robens report and of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act.
I support the argument that places collective bargaining at the centre of industrial relations and sees it as the vehicle by which we control and regulate industrial relations and safety issues.
I should have more confidence in the argument that we have heard from Government supporters if I genuinely believed that they shared that same commitment to collective bargaining. However, it is clear from this Government's record and the way in which they have discouraged collective bargaining that their attitude works through to individual employers.
In 1979 the Conservative party manifesto talked about reducing the power of the trade unions. The present Government have done that and they have derived tremendous satisfaction from the way in which the recession has reduced the power of individual workers and their collective organisations.
It is no good Government supporters saying that we need to exercise individual responsibility and self-regulation if the very organisations through which that self-regulation is to come about are themselves subject to attack. Listening to the speeches of Government Members, I get the impression that they have little idea of what is going on in industry and industrial relations. Taking advantage of the recession, how many agreements have employers torn up and not been prepared to honour during the past four years? How many individual workers are in fear of losing their jobs? How many are frightened of being thrown on to the dole queues and are reluctant to complain about safety risks and relucant to demand the basic rights and privileges that they should enjoy in a decent society?
The recession has been used as a discipline by the Government to weaken the powers of trade unions and the rights that individual workers should enjoy. The recession creates an atmosphere in which collective bargaining and self-regulation on safety issues is not encouraged.
Going even further, the Government have introduced two major pieces of legislation—the Employment Acts of 1980 and 1982 — both designed to restrict the freedom to bargain and to impose upon employers decent basic individual rights at the work place. Now we see it taken a stage further at GCHQ, where the Government are introducing a new principle of enforced, compulsory non-unionism.
During Question Time yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about the right to belong to a trade union and the right not to belong. But she has now introduced a third category, the compulsory enforcement of non-unionism.


This is being imposed on a group of workers who have demonstrated their loyalty to the state and to the Government.
Against the background of a Government who encourage non-unionism and encourage employers to break agreements, is it likely that self-regulation and individual responsibility will resolve these problems?
We are living in a climate in which workers are afraid to use the resources and the organisations available to them. Employers are encouraged by the Government to break agreements and to weaken trade union organisation. We have to cast our minds back only two months to see the attitude of the Conservative Government to one employer who, I suspect, did not give safety a very high priority and who was encouraged by the Government to use the courts in an attempt to break up a trade union organisation. That employer was encouraged not just by the Conservative party but by right hon. and hon. Members representing the alliance, who clearly have their own priorities when they talk of industrial relations and the trade union movement. I am sure that at some stage in this debate we shall hear the alliance spokesman say that he and his right hon. and hon. Friends are committed to safety at work. But they are not committed to trade unionism, enforcement and self-regulation, because they are not committed to the values of collectivism that the trade unions represent.
It is no good basing any argument on the self-regulation principles of Robens and those of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. It is no good talking about individual responsibility and self-regulation. We have a Government who do not encourage the growth and development of trade unionism.
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 was a major and revolutionary breakthrough in industrial relations. It encouraged tens of thousands of workers to become involved. It gave them the right to become involved and to take an intelligent interest in the affairs of their work place. I suspect that many of those workers now find themselves in the dole queues as a result of the Government's actions. Conservative Members look amazed by that statement, but I know from personal experience that the first people in line for redundancy in most engineering factories in Leeds are those who have been prepared to stand up on behalf of their fellow members and to be safety representatives and shop stewards. That is how employers have used the advantages that the Government's policies and the recession have provided.
If we cannot rely on collective bargaining or upon self-regulation, the individual worker will look to enforcement through the agencies provided. There again, however, reassurance is difficult to find. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover gave a catalogue of cuts that the Government have made in the enforcement agencies. There have been reductions in the number of factory inspectors—the very field service that provides some deterrent to employers who are prepared to take risks with safety. That is reflected in the number of visits that inspectors make to factories. The 216,000 visits that were made in 1980 dropped to 190,000 in 1982.
The same fate has befallen the agricultural inspectorate. One might have thought that the Conservatives, who have an interest in farming and agriculture, would try to ensure that their constituents—their own work force in many cases — were adquately catered for. Perhaps they are

interested only in the financial benefits of farming and their interest does not extend to employees. That is reflected in the Government's attitude to the agricultural inspectorate which has been reduced by one quarter since September 1979.
Other branches of the Health and Safety Executive have also failed to keep pace with the workload or have suffered a reduction in numbers. Specialist inspectors are in especially short supply. Only 12 months ago there were three inspectors who were qualified to check microbiological hazards. Today there is only one. I pay tribute to him or her, as that person is also expected to service the specialist committees of the Health and Safety Commission. It is absurd and dangerous that one inspector is expected to protect workers in hundreds of hospitals and laboratories from virulent infectious diseases. Without such protection those people run risks that no right hon. or hon. Member would expect to take.

Mr. Leadbitter: My hon. Friend's mention of hospitals gives me the opportunity to draw his attention to an interesting facet of the law. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Factories Acts and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 affect the Health Service in many ways. The employer in the Health Service is the Crown and the Crown cannot prosecute itself. That is why all of that legislation falls short and why much must be done in the Health Service to improve safety standards.

Mr. Fatchett: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many trade unions and hospital administrators are keen to improve standards. Enforcement of safety standards would be enhanced if the Health Service was covered by those provisions.
The Government's record on this matter is one of neglect and indifference. I shall quote from Health and Safety at Work for April 1983 which comes to exactly the same conclusion:
keeping the bare bones of the HSC and the HSE structures in place is not the same as providing the resources needed to ensure that they are as effective as possible. It is alarming that Mr. Selwyn Gummer is unaware of the damage done to enforcement of health and safety legislation by cuts in the HSE's budget.
I am sure that those alarming fears about the Government's attitude will be justified when the Minister replies.
I do not wish to finish on a critical note, because the spirit of the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, is to give the Government the opportunity to redeem their mistakes, recognise the error of their ways and return to the path of righteousness. I am sure that my hon. Friend would be delighted to see righteousness on the Government Front Bench.
I want to put some questions to the Minister to give him the opportunity to show that he recognises the strength and force of the argument that has been advanced. Is he prepared to restore the cuts in the factory and agricultural inspectorates so that they have the resources to get on with the job and ensure enforcement of the legislation? Secondly, will he provide adequate specialist care in the areas to which I have referred, so that there can be the necessary enforcement? Thirdly, will he provide moneys to ensure that the noise reduction campaign is not just a publicity gimmick but is backed with resources so that industry knows that the Government are firmly committed to that issue?
Fourthly, when does the Minister propose to increase the level of maximum fines and to what level does he


intend to increase them? The Minister has already admitted that there is wide agreement that the maximum fine of £1,000 under section 33 is too low. I believe that £10,000 would be more appropriate. There are those who say that no figure can be put on a disregard for life and health.

Mr. Janner: Does my hon. Friend accept that the £1,000 maximum in the magistrates court is much too low but that on trial on indictment the Crown court has the power to impose an unlimited fine and imprisonment? The trouble is not the level of the maximum fine, but the fact that fines imposed by courts tend to be ludicrously low, utterly inadequate and so miserable that the inspectorate does not feel that it is worth bringing a case before the courts. Secondly, there has not been one case where imprisonment has been imposed, no matter how many people have been killed in industry, despite the fact that it has in other countries. Does my hon. Friend consider that the Lord Chancellor should at least advise magistrates and judges to use their powers and impose the penalties that they already can impose to show people in industry and commerce that health and safety matter?

Mr. Fatchett: I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend is correct. It would help the High Court and the magistrates courts if there were a clear statement of the Government's intention and commitment. A statement from the Lord Chancellor along the lines suggested by my hon. and learned Friend would be a great help.
The maximum fine at the magistrates court is £1,000. I wonder whether the Minister is prepared to accept the suggestion made in The Magistrate in February 1982. It suggested that 25 per cent. of the maximum penalty should be established as the minimum fine. Many hon. Members may feel that that is too low. According to that journal, in 1980 fines in magistrates' courts represented only 16·5 per cent. of the possible maximum fine. Penalties need to be increased quickly, and Government action would be well received.
When the Minister replies, we will hear how earnest the Government are on these matters. If we receive satisfactory answers, we will know that the Government are not simply paying lip service to the matter. I fear that we will hear empty rhetoric and no real commitment. The prevention of injury and death at work involves cost to the Government and the employer. The language of monetarism and the Government's philosophy are that those costs are avoidable. Unless there is a change in policy and a belief in the prevention of accident and injury at work, the Government will have a record of making sure that thousands of workers suffer hardship and injury, and sometimes death, as result of the Government's reluctance to change policy and to stand up to their responsibilities.

1. 11pm

Mr. Steve Norris: The hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) might have been referring to me when he said that at least one Conservative Member was amazed at what he was saying. My amazement was not at the miraculous conclusion that he drew, but at the fact that yet another Opposition Member, when referring to the important subject of health and safety at work, expressed the issue in terms of class struggle, anti-collectivism and so on. He said that what the

Government were doing was another sign of the way in which they are determined to stamp on working people and stamp out the rights of the masses in their workplaces. That was a disappointment.
The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) referred to the unreliability of the statistics. Nevertheless, an examination of the statistics that are available suggests that the level of reported accidents and injuries, taken globally, is still higher than acceptable. I accept that there are ways in which the definition of various accidents and injuries has differed from 1978 to 1982. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right in saying that further changes will confuse people when making comparisons between earlier and later statistics, and make the comparisons unreliable.
It is a matter of regret that in 1982, 2·3 fatal accidents, 58·2 major injuries at work and 1,830 minor injuries per 100,000 workers were still being reported. Therefore, almost two in every 100 workers suffer some form of injury, either major or minor, in the course of one year. Surely that is not ideal.
I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will recall that particularly in the case of minor accidents — my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) will accept this—many of them are not entered into the log book, as they should be. They may be regarded as trivial or not sufficiently important to be entered in the register. However, their consequences may not be foreseen, and the damage that they might have caused may be great.
If one were to take a simple global view of the statistics that have been collected, one would see that since the introduction of the Act the number of recorded accidents and injuries has fallen by only around one quarter. One as to take into account all sorts of factors such as the level of industrial activity, the number of workplaces and the average number of people employed in each of those workplaces. I take a different line from my hon. Friend, in that I believe that one has to conclude that the level of accidents is still too high and could be reduced significantly. I say that despite the fact that on an objective basis there is every reason to believe that considerably increased resources are being devoted to the Health and Safety Executive.
I bow to other hon. Members' greater knowledge, but I believe that it is right to say that the total net expenditure on the Health and Safety Executive rose from £46·4 million in 1978–79 to over £80 million in 1982–83. By my reckoning, that is a virtual doubling in gross terms and an increase of over 10 per cent. in real terms. Although the level of staff employed at the Health and Safety Executive has fallen since 1979, from 1976 to 1982 there was an overall increase of about 12·7 per cent. Although there is at least one front-line inspector for every 1,000 work places and we now have computerised hazard assessment, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) referred, there is still evidence of an unacceptable level of accidents at work.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton made an important contribution and pointed out that he was not a barrister. Barristers seem to have come in for an inordinate amount of stick today. I am grateful that he spoke as an engineer, because I speak with experience of running a workshop on a day-to-day basis. I am sure that my hon.


Friend would agree that the greatest single cause of accidents is failure to observe obvious and straightforward safety regulations.
This, I assure the hon. Member for Leeds, Central, has nothing to do with grinding the faces of working people into the dust or with anti-collectivism or with a failure to discuss safety policies. It is about an understandable part of human nature, which is that one can take any human horse to water in the industrial environment but one cannot make him drink when it comes to simple safety rules.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton instanced a number of examples, and I have one in relation to the recent campaign on the effects of noise, to which several hon. Members have referred. I was recently part of an all-party delegation to one of the largest manufacturing operations in Britain. Part of the visit was conducted in an area of high noise. We noticed as we went through the factory that all the work force had been issued with ear mufflers, those bright yellow mufflers which are, or should be, a feature of all such working environments, but eight out of 10 chose to wear them necklace-like around their necks rather than over their ears.
I agree with those who have said that industrial injury caused by exposure to noise never appears in the pages of a health and safety register because it is a cumulative problem which may manifest itself after perhaps 30 years in the same working environment. What I have said is not intellectually rareified. It must be a cause of regret to all hon. Members that simple straightforward precautions are ignored by so many people in the workplace. It cannot be put down to a failure, for example, of supervision. That would be too critical of those who are charged with the responsibility of supervision in a workshop and who must ensure continuity of production. In the case that I mentioned it was not a failure to issue ear mufflers, but simply a natural reluctance to wear them at all times.

Mr. Dixon: I was endeavouring to make the point that the workplace rather than the working person should be made safe. In other words, we should be making the machinery quieter rather than asking people to wear ear muffs.

Mr. Norris: While investment in safer, which means quieter, machinery is necessary—and my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton pointed out that much of the machinery and capital plant now being produced is inherently safer — I think that the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) will accept that there are many environments in which even present technology does not permit of a silent workplace. I am simply referring to the human element implicit in such a simple matter as wearing ear muffs.

Mr. Janner: I thank the hon. Gentleman not only for giving way but for his constructive approach to this matter. Does he agree that there are three levels on which this problem must be dealt with? First, as he says, the work force could wear ear muffs. Secondly, the work force and supervisors should work together. The supervisors tend to give up in their attempts to have ear muffs worn. If the supervisors, the unions and the safety representative cannot get together so that people feel they ought to wear their ear muffs and take other safety precautions for their protection, we might as well all give up. That is one area in industrial relations in which the work force and supervisors should work together.
Thirdly, does the hon. Gentleman know that there has been a prosecution against people for not wearing ear muffs and that the HSE is starting to enforce those rules, but is having great trouble because it is short of staff and so is unable even to carry out those duties that it already has?

Mr. Norris: I was not aware of the prosecution to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. I do not seek to suggest that because the matter of wearing those safety devices is one for individual workers there is no responsibility on supervisors. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right. I am trying to show — this is something that can find common accord on both sides of the House—that the supervisor who tries to persuade people at their place of work to wear those simple safety devices and who consistently fails in that endeavour will almost inevitably come to accept what will occur. That is a matter of great regret, but it is human nature.
I know that other hon. Members wish to participate, so I simply draw the attention of the House to other instances where safety measures cannot be other than a matter of individual responsibility. I constantly draw attention to the wearing of overalls in my place of work. Overalls are provided, yet the work people who wear ties constantly leave overalls open to the waist and are therefore vulnerable to those ties being caught in machine guards, and so on. I am amazed that facilities are provided in many cases, yet little use is made of them.
To stop at that critical point would not do justice to the simple human element involved in that subconscious decision not to take advantage of all the safety devices available. I am not sure that I want to be in a society in which every man, automaton-like, instantly seizes upon every directive laid upon him and complies with it 100 per cent. There are a number of cases, however, where we must do more as employers and employees to prevent the large number of accidents that occur. I do not believe that accidents have a great deal to do with the number of inspectors or the massive increases in expenditure by the HSE, but they may have much to do with creating climates on the shop floor where health and safety regulations can be taken on board more readily.
The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suggested early in the debate that barristers were concerned simply about toilet accommodation. I have always been amazed that, even in this day and age, large numbers of employers maintain a distinction between the toilets which the management of a company might use and those which the work force might use. That is an ignorant distinction to draw, because, apart from anything else, if the management is prepared to share the facilities with the work force that will, I hope, result in some upgrading of the facility and mean that management and the work force will take greater care to ensure that such facilities are kept to an acceptable standard. The same applies to canteen facilities, where distinctions are often made on a hierarchical basis.
The abandoning by British management of that fundamentally misguided feature would be constructive in terms of health and safety. Becoming more involved in areas where workers carry out dangerous tasks is the greatest single way for management to become aware of bad practices so as to stamp out such practices and secure a safer working environment. Moreover, my experience is


that that creates not only a safer and healthier working environment, but a happier and more constructive work force.
My whole thesis has been that, although much can be done by legislation, inspection, advice and so on, a great deal will always remain the responsibility of the individual worker. That being so, motivating workers to consider the working environment in a responsible way must be the most important task of management and of those charged with health and safety responsibilities.
Employers must ensure variety in work. The greatest enemy of safety is boredom. We have heard about the practice of simply jacking open presses. A person who has been doing the job for 29 years and has done that 1,000 times can take a sheet or a board out without any difficulty, but the one occasion on which the procedure is carried out with slightly less dexterity because the worker's attention is momentarily distracted results in the loss of a finger joint, as one sees so frequently at the workplace.
Boredom is the enemy of safety in so many cases that far more should be done to create variety. For example, rather than taking the production line basis as the normal assumption as to how an article should be produced, there should be far more team working so that tasks can be shared or rotated. For job rotation in the formal sense there should be more training so that people can share a variety of jobs. I am sure that hon. Members appreciate that I do not suggest this in terms of a confrontation on demarcation practices, but in the sense that anything that we can do to relieve tedium, especially where heavy machinery is involved, will achieve as much as simply spending extra money. We must improve safety where it matters—on a day-to-day basis, in the middle of a boring week, at the end of a boring winter in the average workplace which may not have been visited by a health and safety inspector for a considerable time.
Incidentally, I believe that if the health and safety inspector calls every week he will be treated with the contempt accorded to the familiar. We have all seen that irony at the workplace. Too much reliance on the weekly safety meeting is counter-productive, because the people involved become part of the normal boring practices of the workplace.
We need a constructive approach by management as well as continued efforts by the Government if we are to make further real strides in improving industrial health and safety.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I call Mr. John Evans.

Mr. Ray Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the usual custom and practice for Front Bench spokesmen to wind up debates? Some of us have sat here for four hours since 9.30 this morning waiting to be called. If the Front Bench spokesmen are called now, I shall not be able to express the point of view of the 420,000 USDAW workers whose sponsored Member I am.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have much sympathy with the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), but on a day

selected for the debate of private Members' motions the normal practice is for Front Bench spokesmen to intervene at some point in the debate. I call Mr. John Evans.

Mr. John Evans: I sincerely hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) catches your eye later in the debate. I hope that I can curtail my remarks to an appropriate length so that my hon. Friend has an opportunity to be called.
I say to the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) that the problem the House is debating is not whether the factory inspector calls every week, or even every year, but whether he calls at all. That is the subject of the motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
I start by congratulating my hon. Friend on winning the ballot for private Member's motions. I was even more encouraged when he told the House that it was the third occasion on which he had won the ballot. I am one of those who, after 10 years, are still trying to win a ballot.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend on the choice of subject, and the quality of the wording of his motion. In that context, he has performed, as usual, a public service. The quality of the wide-ranging presentation of his argument held the House transfixed, even if, hardly surprisingly, some Conservative Members did not like the truisms that he was uttering to them.
It is monstrous that, nearly 12 years after the passing of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, motions of this nature should still need to be debated in the House of Commons. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) that it should be a normal part of the annual work of the House to debate the yearly report of the Health and Safety Executive. If the House did that, the millions of people who are affected by the regulations would have a great deal more sympathy and time for the House of Commons.
It is even worse that the TUC, the British trade union movement, has felt it necessary to launch a campaign against the Government's cuts in the Health and Safety Executive. Here I must say that the subject of the title of the TUC's campaign is extremely apt,
TUC warning. Government cuts put workers' health and safety at risk.
The truth is that no one can seriously deny that. I was a new Member of the House of Commons in 1974, when it recognised the need to place the health, safety and welfare of those in work above considerations of profit and loss, and to put on to the statue book the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. That Act has been a landmark, and owes a great deal to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and, if I may say so, to yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who, in your position as Under-Secretary at the Department of Employment, piloted the Act through the House. I am sure that it is one of the proudest achievements of your parliamentary career.
As the first five years of the legislation showed, that Act did much to improve the conditions and quality of life of those at work, and reduced risk of injury. The Act also extended the possibility of protection to the people who, in their daily routines and lives, were at risk as a result of their living close to dangerous sites or chemical plants. Unfortunately, that part of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act which my researches tell me was drawn up on


behalf of the Conservative Opposition by the then Member for Penrith and the Border, now Lord Whitelaw, and which laid upon the manufacturers of dangerous processes the onus of informing nearby residents of those processes and the attendant danger, has never been activated. Indeed, it is worth looking at section 3(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 which says:
In such cases as may be prescribed, it shall be the duty of every employer and every self-employed person, in the prescribed circumstances and in the prescribed manner, to give to persons (not being his employees) who may be affected by the way in which he conducts his undertaking the prescribed information about such aspects of the way in which he conducts his undertaking as might affect the health or safety.
When one considers that so much has been said in the debate about processes taking place behind closed doors and with nobody knowing about them, it is essential that people are aware of section 3(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, and that they should be prepared to act upon it.
The Act has benefited many, but, like many reforms that are built on co-operation and consent, it can be rendered ineffective by neglect and indifference. Despite all that has been achieved during the first 10 years, the system that has been established by generations dedicated to improving the health and safety of workers is today moving towards a crisis. The Health and Safety Executive, the body responsible for inspection of workplaces and enforcement of health and safety standards, is no longer able to carry out its role effectively in many areas.
Since the advent of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, there has been widespread recognition that realisation of the potential within the legislation required an expansion of the staff and resources allocated to the Health and Safety Executive. The theme running through the contributions of Conservative Members has been that, if only individual workers would take more care, the cuts in the HSE would not amount to much and there would probably be a benefit to the Exchequer.
I wish to make it perfectly clear that I, my hon. Friends and the entire British trade union movement have always sought to impress upon individual workers the duty and necessity to take protective measures. But the problems with which we are now dealing include the necessity for a proper policing and enforcement agency, and the lack of resources for such an agency to back the individual's responsibility.
It is true that the Act expanded the scope of protection to more than 17 million workers, spread across 750,000 workplaces. But because of the appalling recession during the past four years, the chances are that those figures have been drastically reduced. Nevertheless, we hope that one day we can return to those levels.
Many groups, including the TUC, were quick to realise that we had broadened the obligations of the HSE. That increased its work load and changed its method of work. At that time, the Labour Government were committed to expanding the resources of the HSE, and the staff complement rose from 3,500 in April 1975 to 4,250 in November 1979. Probably the single most important element of that expansion was the growth in the number of factory inspectors from 775 in April 1975 to 950 in April 1979, with a planned increase of 200 during the following five years. It is sad that the verbal support of Conservative Members—who were then in Opposition—

for improving the strength and effectiveness of the inspectorate evaporated so quickly once they came to power.
The immediate and sweeping staff cuts in the Civil Service that the Government initiated when they took office, their ban on recruitment and the 3 per cent. reduction in staff generally have delivered a damaging blow to health and safety legislation. The Government's fetish for reducing bureaucracy was not matched by any comparable fetish for improving people's safety at work. By September 1983, the Government had sacrificed more than 500 staff jobs in the HSE. The Government's ideological drive to cut jobs in the public sector is precisely the neglect and contempt that cost lives and health.
The Government live in a world of false economies. What is the cost of a factory fire? What is the cost of a nuclear error? What price will the Government set on people's lives at work and in the surrounding communities? There is a rightly growing anxiety among members of the community about dangers to themselves and their families from the industrial activities on their doorsteps that involve chemical, toxic, inflammable and explosive substances.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover referred to Flixborough. There have been other major incidents at Stalybridge and Salford during the past three or four years. God knows what could occur in many other establishments which, quite frankly, are not being inspected with the required frequency.
By cutting back on health and safety, the Government are pursuing a policy that is retrogressive, anti humanitarian and plainly ill-founded. Accidents and hazardous working conditions are responsible for an enormous toll of misery to workers and their friends and families, with about 700 deaths and 275,000 accidental injuries every year, with a much larger number of uncharted incidents of ill health caused by workplace hazards. The annual estimate of the cost of such accidents is an incredible £2,000 million per annum, or 1.5 per cent. of this nation's gross national product.
The Government have claimed to be increasing the resources of the HSE, but the reality is quite the reverse. The grant-in-aid from the Government has fallen steadily, in real terms, since 1980. There are now only 557 factory inspectors in the HSE's area offices. That is 107 fewer than in April 1980. The Government's announcement that they are recruiting 35 specialist inspectors barely begins to confront the enormity of the shortage. The Government cannot deny that fewer inspectors means fewer workplace inspections.
The truth is that many small plants will not be inspected in the immediate or near future. Fewer inspections means less enforcement, and less enforcement means short cuts and negligence, which can lead to accidents, injuries and death. Fewer inspections also mean a lack of maintenance, because of an employer's determination that he can cut costs on dangerous machinery. Machinery may not be properly fenced and proper maintenance schedules may not be kept. Consequently, machinery and plant can and frequently do cause injuries.
Where are the resources to tackle the health hazards posed by asbestos? The Minister knows, because we have discussed it in the House, of the concern that has arisen because of the increasing number of applications to strip asbestos from old power stations and factories. He is well aware that the HSE simply has not got the inspectors to


carry out the vital work of monitoring the quality and capabilities of some of the firms that are claiming to be experts in asbestos stripping. Where is the inspectorate to explain, in some detail, the hazards possibly facing young people who are now on the youth training scheme?
In January this year, the Government annnounced that youth trainees would be treated no differently from other young workers, and would be afforded the protection of the existing legislation. That is fine, but I feel sure that it is small comfort to the trainees who have already been injured on badly supervised or unsafe schemes. Indeed, the provision is small comfort to the factory inspectorate, which has made it clear that it does not have enough staff to inspect the many small work places to which young people are now being sent. I am sure that it will give even less comfort to parents who know nothing of the MSC's cursory and token assessment of the health and safety policies provided by some employers, who take their sons and daughters as trainees. What checks are made of the health and safety records of employers providing schemes? What checks are there on the real standards of supervision and safety? Those are questions that the Government cannot answer for fear of betraying the myth, as easily as they betray the young people who rely on such safety for a secure future.
It should be appreciated that school leavers going on to those schemes have no idea of what industry is about, or how dangerous machinery can be. But, when all this is said, what incentive do the Government provide for employers to meet their obligations under the legislation? Several hundred people die or are injured every year in industrial accidents involving breaches of the regulations. Yet the average penalty, according to the HSC manufacturing and service report 1982, was a mere £225. That has to be set against the 1,495 successful prosecutions that were brought for failure to meet health and safety regulations.
Bearing in mind the many recorded and convicted actions, will the Government recommend, or consider imposing, minimum penalties for health and safety breaches? Why do the magistrates' courts deem the exposure of employees to unnecessary risks in the workplace to be such a minor offence? In 1982, breaches of the Act in respect of women and young children carried an average penalty of £77. Failure to provide protective clothing carried an average penalty of £88. Failure to provide first-aid facilities carried an average penalty of £50.
It is interesting to contrast the rather different attitude that is taken to workers and their trade unions in cases involving industrial disputes, when draconian laws are introduced and enormous penalties imposed when workers seek to defend themselves by taking industrial action. We are only too well aware of certain well-publicised instances recently.
There is growing concern that the nuclear installations inspectorate and safety executive, because of Government cuts and an archaic salary structure, is not now attracting the quality and calibre of staff that it needs if it is to do its job correctly. There is growing public concern about all aspects of safety at nuclear installations. If public confidence is to remain in the NII as a body capable of carrying out its task adequately, it is essential that it must

enjoy public confidence. There is a growing feeling that it is not structured in a way that will maintain that confidence for very much longer.
It is wrong that the Department of Energy continues to be the body that controls health and safety within the offshore oil and gas industry. There are some who argue that there is often a conflict of interests within the Department about extracting oil and gas from under the ocean and, at the same time, ensuring that correct and adequate safety standards are maintained. No one can deny that the industry, which operates in appalling conditions, has an appalling record of death and disaster.
My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) and I served our apprenticeships and work experience in dangerous and dirty industries — we worked in the shipbuilding and ship repair industries. We had the privilege—sometimes it was a doubtful privilege—of serving on safety committees. We often took a different view from management on the depth, level and necessity of safety standards. The Minister must accept that there are occasions when incidents occur that would not and should not have taken place if proper safety standards had been accepted and imposed by the management. If every management in the land lived up to its obligations fully and completely and had the interests of its workers 100 per cent. at heart, there would be a very good chance that we would not need factory inspectors. Everything would be perfect. The reality is different. There is no denying that proper health and safety provision involved expense, and some employers are sometimes not too keen on incurring an expense.
Time and industrial processes have moved on. Men are still being killed and maimed by things falling on them or collapsing under them, and we still always have those problems, but new problems are arising from new industrial substances, materials, techniques, chemicals and processes which put at risk not only work forces, but, potentially, whole communities. We need a new stringency in legislation. We must have more resources for the HSE and it must be strengthened.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has performed a public service and, on behalf of the Opposition, I commend his motion to the House. Even at the eleventh hour, I plead with the Government to be prepared to join the TUC in mounting a massive campaign to persuade everyone in our nation of the necessity for good health and safety provisions at the place of work. If we embarked on such a programme, it would save many millions of pounds and much human suffering and misery.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): I am sure that I shall not be breaking the normal rules if I say that I suspect that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would prefer not to be in the Chair for this debate, but would rather be mixing it on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that I am not breaking the rule when I say, "Hear, hear," to the Minister's comment.

Mr. Gummer: You took my remarks in the spirit in which they were meant, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I am pleased that we are discussing the subject, although I am sure that if it were not for the House's


knowledge of the generosity and care with which the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) always approaches matters, we might have suspected that his reason for tabling the motion was not so much to discuss the subject as to make party political and class warfare comments. We can see that from the fact that the motion was tabled at almost the last possible moment. That is usually done when an hon. Member does not want an argument about the facts and is not seeking information or trying to urge the Government to do their best, but merely wishes to have an argument that is as acrimonious as possible.
The hon. Member for Bolsover has a history of acrimony in these matters. The scheme to help pneumoconiosis sufferers was introduced by a Labour Government, but I had the pleasure to announce that the payments would be regularly uprated in line with the cost of living. In the debate on the first of those upratings, the hon. Member made one of the most outrageous attacks on doctors working in the pneumoconiosis scheme that I have ever heard. He suggested that they deliberately misnamed people's diseases to help a Tory Government. That is the level on which the hon. Gentleman speaks and he proved it again today when he made an attack on tribunals by reference to one case.
I checked up on that case. The decision was unanimous. Each tribunal has three members and the representative of workpeople agreed with the decision.

Mr. Skinner: He was wrong, too.

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman wants the Government to interfere in the independent system that was set up for people's protection. He believes that there is a universal plot. He makes the sort of discussion that we ought to be having on these matters much more difficult.
We are discussing a report on which both sides of the House have been able to proceed in concert. The Bill was introduced originally by a Conservative Government. It is the only advantage of our failure to win the 1974 general election that we know that both parties were committed to broadly the same legislation. This is not a partisan Act. It is one that we all supported, and I have tried to continue in your steps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by attempting on as many occasions as possible to get all-party support for what we want to do. In that sense, although I am pleased that we have this motion before the House, I am sad about its terms.

Mr. Skinner: When the Minister reads Hansard tomorrow I think that he will find that when I was attacking the composition of tribunals I made it clear that I was attacking the majority of those represented on them, because I know that only a small minority of them represent our side of the fence.
As for that debate upstairs in Committee, which had nothing to do with this debate, I was not attacking doctors so much as the Minister himself. He was saying that he could not find sufficient money for those with industrial deafness and the rest of it when he had just pocketed another £5,000 per annum because the Prime Minister had decided, without a ballot, to make him chairman of the Tory party.

Mr. Gummer: I refer hon. Members to the report of the Committee which considered that statutory instrument. During its proceedings the hon. Member for Bolsover said:

I repeat that the Tory doctors make certain diagnoses so that the Government do not have to pay any money."—[Official Report, Fifth Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c., 7 December 1983; c. 6.]
That is what the hon. Gentleman said, and now he is attempting to mislead the House by ignoring what he said.
The hon. Member for Bolsover also attempted to attack the members of those tribunals. More than 1,000 members of those tribunals are appointed on the recommendation of the Trades Union Congress. It is a disgrace that the hon. Gentleman should besmirch decent people who spend a great deal of their time trying to do what is right by the majority of the population.
I come next to the hon. Gentleman's comments about accidents — [Interruption.] I listened to the hon. Gentleman for an hour. Although most of what he said had nothing to do with health and safety, it is time that he listened to my answers to what he said.

Mr. Skinner: He is a joke.

Mr. Gummer: If the hon. Gentleman would listen to me, he would be in a position to decide whether I was a joke.
The annual average of accidents in mining where there are changes in measurement procedures and the rest of it — [Interruption.] The measurements and comparisons are not always easy in accidents not least because ways of reporting differ from one place to another, one area to another and one industry to another. In mining there is a continuity because of the nature of the industry.
Between 1970 and 1974 the annual average of accidents per 100,000 man shifts was 118·79. Between 1975 and 1979 it fell to 93·12. In 1980 it went down again to 72·66. In 1981 it fell to 64·26. In 1982 it fell to 54·39. The fall is continuous and clear, and the hon. Member for Bolsover is wrong to say that there has been an increase in the number of accidents in mining—[Interruption.] In fact, he is even more wrong, because I can announce today that it looks as though the figures for fatalities in mining will be down to their lowest in history at, probably, 30 in 1983 —[Interruption.] That compares with 38 in 1982, 35 in 1981, 42 in 1980 and 53 — [Interruption.] It is interesting. The hon. Gentleman said that it went up, whereas it has come down to 30 compared with 35 in 1981 and 38 in 1982. The hon. Gentleman is taking one year when there was an increase of three. The figure has fallen by eight now—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman does not wish to hear the facts. He is interested only in political propaganda. Many of us believe that he has done a grave disservice to the discussion by the way in which he introduced the debate.

Mr. Skinner: I care far more than you.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) knows that he must not persist in interrupting from a sedentary position. No matter how provocative the Minister is, I am sure that the House wants to listen to his speech, as do I.

Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to make it clear that if this hypocrite here—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot use that word about another hon. Member. He must withdraw it.

Mr. Skinner: I shall not withdraw it, as that is what he is.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is Friday, not Tuesday afternoon. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will, at my request, withdraw what he has just said.

Mr. Skinner: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am afraid that if the hon. Gentleman persists, I have no option but to warn him that I shall have to ask him to withdraw from the Chamber. I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman will respond to my request.

Mr. Skinner: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I therefore have no option but to ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw from the Chamber for the rest of today's sitting.
The hon. Member, having used a grossly disorderly expression, was ordered by Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER to withdraw the same, but he declined to comply with that direction; whereupon Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 24 (Disorderly conduct), ordered him to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of this day's Sitting, and he withdrew accordingly.

Mr. Gummer: You were not in the Chair at the time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the debate has not run its usual course because we have dealt with considerations which perhaps ought not to enter into this debate. The whole House cares about accident rates. One accident, whether minor, serious or fatal, is one too many. We must therefore ask ourselves how we might best deal with those accidents. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have advanced various methods by which we might improve matters.
I was pleased to hear the comments of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr Foot) whose contribution in these matters is well known. None of us would wish to deny it. It was sad that he quoted out of context a letter which I understand was leaked in The Guardian. The letter was prepared by an official and it was different from the letter which the commission sent. After all, the commission, not the official, is responsible for its letters. More serious than that, however, is the fact that the letter was not written in response, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, to present circumstances. It was a response to the hypothetical situation that resources to the Health and Safety Commission were reduced by 5 or 10 per cent. It was not a response to resources being increased, as was the case. I am sure that, when the right hon. Gentleman reflects on and reads what he said, he would not wish it to be suggested that someone said that resources were not being provided.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to attack the Government for reducing spending.

Mr. Ray Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to attack an hon. Member whom you have just asked to leave the Chamber? Would it not be more in keeping with the traditions of the House for the Minister to deliver his speech to the right hon. and hon. Members who are present?

Mr. Gummer: I was referring to the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent, who is in the Chamber. I was answering a point that he raised and was not referring to the hon. Member for Bolsover.

Mr. Foot: Now that the Minister has referred to those documents, I trust that he will follow the normal precedent and present them to the House, so that we can judge them.

Mr. Gummer: Of course I shall not fail to follow a normal precedent. However, I have referred to the document to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and it appeared in The Guardian.
The right hon. Gentleman attacked the Government for cutting resources for the Health and Safety Executive. The House should be aware that that is just not so. In actual terms, between 1978–79 and 1982–83, the amount of money spent by the Health and Safety Executive, contrary to the specific comments of Opposition Members, has risen from £46·4 million to £80·2 million—in real terms from £31·7 million to £34·9 million. It may be that in the best of all possible worlds we should spend more. I do not suggest the contrary. I suggest that our debates would start off much more sensibly if we had the facts right instead of inventing them and worrying ourselves about fears that do not exist.
There are specific matters about which we have considerable anxiety. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) spoke about small firms. I will take up his point about whether liaison with the small firms organisations is satisfactory. I agree that we could provide better information on registration, and so on, for the small firm when it starts. I have taken a particular interest in small firms. I recently visited a number of garment factories where there have been fire problems. That is not a responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive, but I wanted to see what help we could be to the fire officers. We shall do what we can about that.
A number of hon. Members mentioned sanctions. I announced last month that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary would in the near future be raising fines and penalties available to magistrates. I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) that it is not just the level of the fines which is important, but the way in which they are applied. I believe that during my intervention in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, I showed my support for the idea that it may be necessary to remind people of the way in which the Health and Safety Executive brings prosecutions. It is the end of the programme rather than the beginning. When a case goes to court, it should not be seen in the context of a first offence, but as the only thing that the Health and Safety Executive can do, having gone through everything else, to make an employer behave himself.

Mr. Janner: While I accept what the Minister says, will he undertake to discuss with his noble Friend the Lord Chancellor whether he will now introduce a programme of guidance to magistrates and judges to advise them to work along the lines that the Minister suggested courts ought to work?

Mr. Gummer: I should want to consider that suggestion in the context of the timing of the raising of the penalties. It may well be that it should be considered, but I have already given an undertaking to study the matter.
I want to deal with some of the comments made about safety committees and trade unions. I am in favour of trade unions being interested in the proper representation of their members, and safety committees must be a part of that. Nothing that I say will derogate from that. It is most


important that the workers should be represented. I am pleased about trade union representation on the committees not just because it involves trade unions, but because they represent the workers. I should be worried if trade union representation on the committees were seen as a part of the battle in industry instead of what it should be—proper representation of ordinary people at their place of work to see that safety is fully maintained.
One of the problems about the arguments advanced by Opposition Members is that—this is true of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent—one never spends enough on health and safety. If I may refer, once again. Mr. Deputy Speaker, to your experience, that must be something that any Minister finds because people will always say, "If you spent the money here or there, or did something else, you could improve health and safety." Therefore—

Mr. John Evans: But the Government have cut the support.

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman should not say that. The fact is that we have increased the resources that are available. It is all very well for him to say that. We are spending more money in real terms than his Government spent. If we are not spending enough, his Government were spending less. One must ask whether Opposition Members have the right to make such extreme statements.
In case the hon. Gentleman feels that I am being too tough on him, I should tell him that I am concerned about many areas. I am pleased that we are seeking to increase the agricultural inspectorate and that we are recruiting at the moment. We need to sharpen up the approach to safety on the farm. I had a meeting with the National Farmers Union to see what we could do about the extension of safety committees in farms. The nature of farms and those employed on them have made that a less advanced area. There are small groups of people, widely scattered. Safety representation is not as good as it should be.
Complaints have been made about the mines and quarries inspectorate. There is now one inspector for about 2,500 miners, whereas 20 years ago there was about one inspector for 3,500 miners.

Mr. John Evans: There are now fewer miners.

Mr. Gummer: That may be so, but the hon. Gentleman cannot therefore complain that the mines are not as well covered as they were before. The facts show the opposite. One of the things that the hon. Gentleman should know is that 90 mines and quarries inspectors earn more, even without this year's increase, than almost all those in the nuclear installations inspectorate. The mines and quarries inspectorate has been particularly well supported by both this and the previous Government. Therefore, the facts of the debate are that the helpful and real contributions have come from Conservative Members, who have sought to direct the Government towards specific—

Mr. John Evans: Have not Opposition Members made helpful comments?

Mr. Gummer: I would not say that. On the last occasion when I spoke from the Dispatch Box about noise, I said that helpful comments had been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. However, on this occasion, because of the way in which the motion was

introduced, on the one hand suggestions have been made about improving health and safety and on the other hand there has been a return to the class war.
I shall consider with care the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) about the agricultural inspectorate. The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) referred to noise. He was generous enough to say that, even if most of us were awful, at least I had some interest in the problem of noise. It has been difficult to get people to take the matter seriously. Resources are being devoted to the matter. That is why we have been able to conduct the awareness campaign and are now implementing a tougher policy on enforcement. All that is part of the programme.
It has been difficult to get that support. I sought it personally from the Health and Safety Commission. It has been difficult for the very reason that the hon. Gentleman mentioned — that, somehow or other, deafness is not treated as seriously as other industrial injuries, although it is now the most prevalent industrial disease, which we have failed to combat.
It was not right for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that I was giving a negative view on the European Community's proposals for noise control. It proposes a single figure of 85 decibels both for the use of audiometry and as the threshold figure. That is inefficient. It will be impossible to enforce it properly not only in this country but elsewhere. There are alternative and better ways open to us. I have never said that 90 decibels was the one figure that we were aiming at. It happens to be the level in the Health and Safety Commission's present guidelines, which are enforceable in the courts.
While, therefore, I have not said 90, I think that that sort of figure is more likely to provide a system by which we can reach out to those who are in danger. Although it is right to say that 85 is much lower than 90, many workers who are exposed to noise of 85 would find it difficult if they were told that, even though there was no discernible danger in many circumstances at that level, they must wear ear protection permanently; that would be quite unacceptable.

Mr. Dixon: rose—

Mr. Gummer: I have very little time in which to speak. I must get on.
If I am told by the hon. Member for Jarrow that I must not put ear protection above everything else, then I must tell him that I am totally opposed to the argument that goes on about this matter. There are those who constantly say that it must always be ear protection and that nothing must be done about machinery, because that is too expensive, while those on the other side say that if it cannot be done via the machinery we must not have ear protection. Those of us who care about deafness must do a deal on those two aspects, and that deal is that we want both, until we can have what we really should have, which is noise attenuation at source, and that means the production of new machinery which does not make a noise.
That is why the comments of the hon. Member for Bolsover—I must tell him in his absence—about the European Community were wrong. The EC provides us with the opportunity to make rules and regulations under which every country in the Community must demand standards of engineering applying to new machinery, and that means that instead of one having a competitive


disadvantage if one goes for noise attentuation, we all start on the same level, which is absolutely vital. Even those who are not particularly keen on the European Community must agree that that is a major advantage which we should Support.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens), from his wealth of industrial experience, made some extremely worthwhile comments, and I hope that we shall be able to encourage other employers to take the sort of attitude that he expressed.
I must tell the hon. Member for Leeds, Central that I cannot promise to restore the cuts about which he spoke, because there have been no cuts. At a time when the number of accidents is falling, when the new computer arrangements mean that we can use our inspectorate more effectively than ever before, and when, in other areas, we have had to cut expenditure in real terms, we have safeguarded the Health and Safety Executive, showing that the Government give safety a high priority.
It was a totally unacceptable slur on an employer for the hon. Gentleman to say, in a totally different context, "I suspect that he does not put safety as a high priority." I put it to the hon. Gentleman that he does not know whether he does or does not, and that he made the comment merely as a party political reference to somebody he does not like, and it is unsuitable for health and safety to come into that area.

Mr. Fatchett: rose—

Mr. Gummer: I must not give way, or others who wish to take part will not have an opportunity to do so.
The answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Leeds, Central about microbiology is that we have a small team of four inspectors and that we believe they are adequate for the needs we have. I shall look at any specific points he brings to my attention, should he wish to write to me or discuss the matter with me later.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) that it it important to take seriously the points he made about noise and particularly the enforcing of rules, and I was interested in his remarks about accidents being caused through boredom. Accidents occur because people get used to believing that they can get away with unsafe practices, and, as we know, the real problem with accidents is that they do not always happen. If every time one used the machine without the guard on one hurt oneself, people would not use the machine without the guard in place. The danger is that 99 times out of a hundred one gets away with it, and it is on the one occasion when one is distracted that the accident happens. That is an important aspect which we must take seriously.
The hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans) accused the Government of not doing what the Conservatives sought to add to the Act, but that is not true. I agree that we have not carried through—as his party did not when in office—the generality of it in the sense of placing a general requirement. But under the Asbestos (Licensing) Regulations, the Health and Safety (Agriculture) (Poisonous Substances) Regulations, the Packaging and Labelling of Dangerous Substances Regulations, the Petroleum Spirit (Motor Vehicle, etc.) Regulations, the Petroleum Spirit (Plastic Containers) Regulations, the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act, the Safety Signs Regulations and under other dangerous

substances legislation we have insisted on precisely what the hon. Gentleman is asking, which is that people round about should be notified.
We are looking to see whether we should do more than that and whether it would be right to have a more general power and insistence. We have found that specific method to be very effective because, one by one, that notification draws the attention of employers and the work force. A general regulation might not be as effective. We will continue to look at this matter. I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman when the Government consider changes and say what we feel.
If I was not able to cover all the matters raised by the Opposition, it was because of a lack of time. I shall be happy to write to them in response to their points. It is my earnest belief and desire that health and safety at work should be a matter on which both sides of the House can unite. We are bound to disagree and have arguments about how to deal with that matter, but it is not helpful to press forward—this is a line that all of us in general support—and demand constantly that we debate this matter in an atmosphere not of sensible contribution but of party political class warfare. I must say that the contribution of a distinguished Member, the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent, was not one of his finest.

Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I shall be brief and not follow the remarks that many hon. Members have made in great detail. I want to make some especially important points about hazardous substances which are the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive, and I prefer to spend most of the short time available to me to speak on that aspect.
Although the Minister may rightly refute the approach adopted by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), it would be a sad day for health and safety if the Opposition — whichever party was in Opposition — were not pressing the Government to spend more money on it. The Minister conceded that point during his speech. Although he is right to condemn the partisan spirit in which the hon. Member for Bolsover introduced the debate, he should not protest too strongly at the Opposition seeking to help him to get more funds out of the Treasury to do his job, and that of the Health and Safety Executive, more effectively.
Irrespective of any disputes about the direction in which the figures are going, there are major black spots in areas that have long had black spots in terms of the numbers of deaths and injuries — in maintenance, construction, mining and quarrying—and I do not believe that any of us would rest easy because of a slight decline in, for instance, mining deaths when in the past year three or four fewer people were killed than in the year before that. As long as there is that percentage of deaths and injuries in those black spot areas, none of us should rest easy.
I hope the Minister will pursue vigorously two areas that have been raised by hon. Members and I endorse the anxiety that has been expressed about them. One area is new technologies and new substances. Hon. Members are aware that, in many areas where the petrochemical and other such industries operate, developments of new techniques, technologies and substances create a great deal of fear and uncertainty among the work force. Although management is aware of those fears and uncertainties, I hope that the Health and Safety Executive will have the resources to cope with those developments.
The Health and Safety Executive finds it difficult to keep track of subcontracting which occurs predominantly in the construction industry. I hope that adequate resources will be sustained and added to ensure that subcontracting is properly policed.
I entirely accept that the approach to health and safety at the workplace should be one of consensus and not confrontation and I agreed very much with the comments of the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) in that respect. Nevertheless, we still need the big stick and tough laws to ensure that there is strict enforcement to deal with the minority of irresponsible employers. With that in mind, I welcome the Minister's remarks about toughening up the penalties in due course.
I hope that adequate resources will be provided for the HSE to carry out the new responsibilities announced recently whereby it will take over the watchdog role in relation to the safety of distribution and consumption of gas both at home and in the workplace. The number of explosions in the gas industry and in people's homes and the resulting publicity have caused great anxiety in recent times. I am sure that many hon. Members are as pleased as I am that responsibility for that area is to be taken over by an independent organisation—the HSE—and is not being left so much in the hands of the industry itself. The Stockton-on-Tees home safety association has made representations to me and I know that it will be pleased that that responsibility is being given to the HSE, but adequate resources must be provided. The HSE is taking over an enormous job from the Department of Energy. It must have the resources to monitor what is happening in the distribution and use of gas both at home and at the workplace.
A bombshell hit Teesside just before Christmas when it was announced that the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive was to investigate the possibility of dumping nuclear waste in an anhydrite mine beneath Billingham — a highly-populated area in which, as throughout Teesside, a vast number of hazardous substances are already stored. Everyone on Teesside utterly opposes the placing of nuclear waste under people's houses. I have never heard such a ludicrous proposition. It is difficult enough to decide where it should be put, but the last place to put it is under people's houses and under dangerous industries. That announcement has also heightened anxiety about the other substances stored and used by industry in Teesside, which probably has the highest concentration of hazardous substances in the entire country.
The HSE is responsible for monitoring those substances and the firms using them, but a number of difficulties have arisen. The best-known example on Teesside was the Carless chemical plant. The HSE announced that the plant was a blight on the centre of Middlesbrough. Time does not permit me to go into the details, but the result was that Middlesbrough borough council and the county council had to buy the company out at a cost of £1 million so as to sustain the development of the centre of Middlesbrough and put a new road through northern Middlesbrough.
Compensation for removal of hazardous substances in that way is a major problem. There are 36 sites on Teesside with major hazardous substances. It is not good enough for the HSE on behalf of the Government and the public to declare that the sites are dangerous but not to provide the means to buy them out if action has to be taken due to the planning blight caused. I hope that the Minister will consult his colleagues at the Department of the Environment so that this problem can be overcome.
A further problem arises in relation to information about hazardous substances. I believe that more anxiety is caused by keeping the sites secret than by publishing information about them and the safeguards to reassure people that adequate steps have been taken to protect them if anything goes wrong. I hope that the Minister will consult the HSE to ensure that full information about the properties, transportation, storage and use of hazardous substances is given to work forces and to the public so that they may be reassured that adequate provision is being made to protect them.
I hope that the Minister will consult the Department of the Environment about one other matter, which is the loophole in the planning law whereby no permission is required if a warehouse is converted from a current safe use to a use that involves the storage and use of hazardous substances. It is only if there is to be any change in the actual building that permission is required. That is an inadequate state of affairs in areas such as mine which are dominated by heavy industry such as steel, petrochemical and engineering, all of which use such substances.
Although the Minister cannot respond to my points now, I hope that he will either refer them to his colleagues or respond to me in writing.

Mr. John McWilliam: I declare my interest—

It being half past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Orders of the Day — ROAD TRAFFIC CONTROL (GREATER LONDON) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 2 March.

LEASEHOLD (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Second Reading what day?

Mr. Donald Stewart: By the authority of the hon. Member in charge, Friday 30 March.

WORKING CONDITIONS OF GOVERNMENT TRAINEES (No. 2) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day? No day named.

TOUR OPERATORS (ADVERTISING OF FOREIGN HOLIDAYS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 24 February.

CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question —[18 November]—That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day?

Mr. John McWilliam: With the permission of the hon. Member concerned, Friday 10 February.

Orders of the Day — Foreign Secretary's Statement

Mr. Michael Cocks: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that you are not responsible for the answers given by Ministers from the Dispatch Bax, but, perhaps by inadvertency, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has misled the House by his remarks about receiving an apology from those responsible for the television programme which was the subject of an earlier discussion.
The Press Association newswire states:
TV denies Howe apology.
Thames Television today denied that they had apologised to the Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe over questions put to him over the GCHQ union row on the TV Eye programme last night. 'We have neither been asked for, nor have offered an apology', a spokeman said.
In view of that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would you afford the earliest opportunity next week for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to clarify the matter? We shall, of course, be pursuing it through the usual channels.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House will recognise that this is not a matter for me, but doubtless the right hon. Gentleman's comments will have been heard.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was present during, and participated in, the questioning of the Foreign Secretary this morning. All in the House at that time will recollect that in the defence that he put forward the right hon. and learned Gentleman rested heavily on the supposed apology. You have the responsibility of defending the House against its being misled, especially by Ministers of the Crown. Either Thames Television is telling lies, or lies are being told by other people. In those circumstances—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that I can usefully or sensibly add to what I have already said on this matter.

Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the information referred to by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) has been available for two hours. Has any approach been made to you by the Foreign Secretary either about coming to the House to rectify the statement which he apparently erroneously made earlier, or to announce his resignation?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No representations have been made to the Chair. As I said earlier, doubtless the comments of right hon. and hon. Members will have been heard.

Mr. Don Dixon: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the Foreign Secretary returns to the House to make another statement, will it be possible to have a polygraph nearby?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Ray Whitney): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have nothing to add at this stage to the statement made by my right and learned Friend. I shall, of course, bring to his attention the points made by Opposition Members.

Mr. John McWilliam: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had occasion to check the Hansard proof of my intervention during questions to the


Foreign Secretary. I can confirm that on the same page of that proof the Foreign Secretary repeated the suggestion that he had received an apology from those concerned in the television programme. An early statement, possibly on Monday, might be to the benefit en the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House will have heard what the Under-Secretary of State said. Perhaps we may now proceed to deal with the remaining business.

Mr. Greville Janner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As one of the Ministers in the Department is present and would no doubt be able at least to say whether an approach was made by the Foreign Secretary to the Thames Television people, can he not take this opportunity to apologise to the House, should he so wish?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. In the light of what has been said, I do not think that we can carry the matter further at this point. The views that have been expressed will have been heard and will no doubt be communicated to the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Harry Greenway: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I distinctly heard the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) say that upstairs he had seen the comments of another right hon. Member.

Mr. McWilliam: Inadvertently.

Mr. Greenway: Inadvertently. In that case, I shall not pursue the point. Will you confirm, Mr. Deputy Speaker, than an hon. Member, of whatever party, is not allowed, before publication, to see the comments of another hon. Member?

Mr. McWilliam: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The comments that I saw were on the same page of the proof. As the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) knows, one is presented with a piece of paper, and blinkers do not operate on my glasses.

Orders of the Day — Anglo-US Relations

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Major.]

Mr. Richard Ryder: I shall heed the advice of the great film director, D. W. Griffith, and cut to the chase.
In 1980 United States foreign policy, seen from western Europe, was tatty. It lacked line and shape. President Carter, devoured by doubts, sanctioned discordant signals from the State Department and the National Security Council almost daily. The uncertainty of the American approach bred anxiety and apprehension amongst many of its friends.
In 1984, United States foreign policy, seen from western Europe, is said to be unyielding and too self-assertive. The certainty of the American approach has bred another strain of anxiety and apprehension amongst many of its friends. So, in moments of despair, American officials and politicians are often heard muttering that those who please nobody are to be pitied less than those whom nobody can please. Their western European counterparts respond that, in the past, Americans seldom resolved whether they were interventionist or isolationist, concerned or indifferent, moralistic or self interested.
Now western Europeans, regardless of political persuasions, recognise that President Reagan's foreign policy has at least been consistent, although its conception and execution have ruffled a few feathers.
The gas pipeline, export controls, agricultural trade, deployment of Pershing and cruise missiles, robust rhetoric aimed at the Eastern bloc and a host of issues have generated tension between western Europe and the United States. It has resulted in distinguished men, several of whom have retired from active political service, such as Mr. Helmut Schmidt, whispering to the East about western Europe's desire to stand aside from the United States. Even serving Ministers in key posts, such as Mr. Cheysson, have talked inelegantly about "decoupling" and a "progressive divorce" in order to facilitate accommodation with the Eastern bloc. Is this the influence, inquire baffled Americans, of western Europe's unilateralists? Is it due to latent western European neutralism confirmed in opinion polls across the continent? Is it solely caused by President Reagan? It is plain old fashioned anti-Americanism, rooted in social and cultural disdain for the American way of life, or is it the result of America's blossoming interests in the Pacific basin?
All these factors, and others too, play their part. Yet a key reason stems from the growth of western Europe as an economic entity in the form of the European Economic Community. After 1945, the United States, armed with the mighty dollar, put western Europe back on its feet and offered protection during the cold war. Recently the EEC has challenged American supremacy in world markets and begun flexing its political muscles by sketching an autonomous foreign policy of its own. After all, this is the goal which many influential western European politicians and diplomats—some of whom are British—have been striving to achieve for years. The policy, in practice, is most apparent in the middle east where western European and American interests do not always coincide. But it is apparent elsewhere too—in central America and, to a lesser degree, in southern Africa.
Such attitudes are encouraged by evidence that a growing number of European voters, while still endorsing nuclear deterrence and multilateralism, regard America's military presence in Europe as a source of friction rather than security — an assertion, at its purest, based on ancient fears about Russian encirclement. That argument is difficult to resolve in a historical context, although we should ask how far frontiers have to be extended before encirclement is relegated to the obscurity of newspeak. We are still dealing with an expansionist Soviet empire which is constantly suppressing spasms of freedom among its satellite states.
The presence of the United States of America in western Europe helps to counterbalance Soviet power. If fewer western European nations were willing to share the burden and accept the obligations of the Alliance, the balance of power might prove inadequate. So an aim of Soviet policy is to convert America's allies to neutralism. That can best be achieved by influencing anti-American or Euro-nationalistic sentiments, especially in West Germany, to the point where American public opinion tires of its expensive western European ties. The Americans will simply say, "To hell with the Europeans, we will do things our way." It will not, of course, mean reverting to outright isolation as set out by Monroe, who declared:
In the Wars of European powers in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so".
But it may mean sweet insularity rather than sour isolationism, in tune with a Jeffersonian doctrine which stated:
The less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe the better".
The huddled masses, who later found sanctuary in Jefferson's United States, were victims of European famine, terror, poverty and persecution. Today most of their descendants enjoy prosperity thousands of miles from Hamburg and Naples. They cannot be expected to underwrite for ever the freedom of distant cousins by banker's order. They cannot be expected to underwrite for ever the freedom of distant cousins when appreciation is often grudging, or when cultural contrasts are stressed by leaders of western European opinion.
The concept of sweet insularity is dangerous. Yet it offers Britain a diplomatic opening to check its progress. That opening must be seen in this context. Whether or not the western Europeans like it, President Reagan is short priced favourite to win another term of office. The President's denigration by east coast leader writers and Georgetown hostesses should not delude his British opponents on the Left, and in other political or diplomatic circles.
Further afield, of course, some western Europeans scorn every American president. I dare say even Mr. Helmut Schmidt would attract a sniff of antagonism, in that post, from a few fellow continentals.
What can Britain do? First, we must ask whether the western Europeans, with their multiplicity of political groupings, can argue with a single voice in any event. After all, on defence, they cannot decide whether the biggest threat is nuclear or conventional, or indeed whether one exists at all.
Secondly, we can resist neutralism and anti-Americanism as ingredients of western European foreign

policy more actively than hitherto. This is no easy task. For the simplest course of action for western European foreign policy makers is to say, "Let us look at the United States and see how we can differ." Here the British are on uneven ground. For we are constantly accused of lacking the spirit of Europeanism. Sympathisers with that charge, wracked with guilt, lurk in crevices of our decision-making structure. They must not prevail.
Thirdly, the Anglo-American relationship is unique. The Pilgrims, Ditchley and other institutions provide platforms for us to convince the Americans that the Atlantic pillar of our foreign policy is intact and strong.
Fourthly, the main reason for its strength is that, despite hiccups, the underlying personal relationship between the Prime Minister and the president is based on shared perceptions. It would be tragic if the executives of British foreign policy believed otherwise and acted accordingly. Here, my fears are assuaged by the presence of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. His attachment to Anglo-American relations is long and close, and I have never doubted his powers of persuasion.
Fifthly, as my hon. Friend knows, British diplomats in Washington can perform key roles. Lord Franks's relationship with Dean Acheson was remarkable. So, too, was Lord Harlech's with the Kennedys, and Peter Jay's with members of the Carter Administration has been underestimated by others. Only history will relate whether special relationships of this kind exist at present. I hope, but doubt, they do.
There is stress and frustration between western Europe and the United States. These features were borne out earlier in the week by the remarks of Mr. Eagleburger.
But in a process where emphasis and attitudes are crucial, the British and American Governments should use their unique relationship to reduce the sources of irritation. In doing so, perhaps both might bear in mind some words of Robert Service:
Ah! the clock is always slow; it is later than you think.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Ray Whitney): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Ryder) on giving the House the opportunity of holding such an important debate. I am only sorry that it is not to be listened to by a wider audience. I wish that the enthusiasm of some Labour Members in pursuing vendettas over the GCHQ affair could be transferred to the important subject of Anglo-American relations, which my hon. Friend has outlined so effectively.
I share my hon. Friend's concern about the stress and frustration, as he described it, which is the worry of a number of people about the state of Anglo-American relations. However, without any danger of seeming to be complacent, I hope that during the next few minutes I shall be able to assure him that the Government intend that the present good state of Anglo-American relations will be maintained and developed.
We fall easily into an acceptance that there is something fundamental and simple about Anglo-American relations that will always be there. We misunderstand the immense complexity and sensitivity of the relationship. It seems that there is a tendency to think that there was a happy, golden age when all was sweetness and light, when no dissensions


or divisions were present across the Atlantic. As my hon. Friend will be the first to admit and recognise, that was never the position.
Even in the heady and optimistic days of the post-war relationship, there were still problems. I refer, for example, to the time of Winston Churchill's Fulton, Missouri, speech. There was the presidency of Mr. Truman and the immense generosity of the Marshall plan, which launched the recovery of western Europe. Even at that time, there could always be found problems and worries. I suggest that it is the very success of western policies over the past 35 years or so which has created the climate of concern to which my hon. Friend refers. When the western nations were faced with the pressure of war, the intensity of our relationship was recognised virtually by all. With the success of NATO, we have been able to relax that pressure.
Let us recognise that, in historical terms, the NATO Alliance is an extraordinary achievement. There has surely never been such an enduring and successful alliance. It has allowed our citizens and countries to develop, in peace, their healthy democracies and economies. Whatever problems we face at present, and will face in cycles, there can be no doubt about the incredible post-war economic achievements of western countries and the benefits that they have brought to our people.
Of course, the diversity and verve in our democracies create their own problems. We know that only the bad news is carried and that no one carries news about happy agreements or arrangements working satisfactorily. The same is true of the transatlantic relationship. Sometimes, we get the impression that things are much worse than they are. Whether in commerce or politics, we read headlines every day about the problems that exist.
We must recognise that the changes in our relationship, which must continue because it is an evolving relationship, have been marked, particularly, by the significant evolution of the European Community. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk accepts that there need not be a clash between any nation's commitment to the European ideal and a healthy transatlantic relationship.

Mr. Robert Jackson: My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Ryder) seemed to put great stress on the bilateral relationship between Britain and the United States. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that perhaps the most useful contribution that Britain could make to the unity of the Western Alliance would be to ensure that our influence in Europe is employed to secure the convergence of European views with American views?

Mr. Whitney: My hon. Friend makes an important point which I should like to pursue if I had more time.
We believe firmly, and successive American Governments have accepted, that the unity of Europe and the development of an economically and politically powerful Europe must be in the interests of all of us who share the common ideals that are the basis of the western relationship.
It would be Panglossian and excessively complacent to ignore the fact that our different perceptions of a variety of issues need careful handling. The Government give them that careful handling and are determined to continue to do so.
There are underlying verities of our relationship. Many go well beyond the spheres of Government. I could not do

justice in this debate to the deep cultural links and the personal links that have been built up over many generations. However, I shall touch on the economic links. British investments in the United States total about $23 billion and United States investments here amount to $30 billion. Trade between our two countries last year reached nearly £16 billion. These are enormous figures which sum up in arithmetic a vast network of relationships.
The same is true of the excellent personal relationship at heads of Government level which extends the whole way down so that not a day passes without governmental contact at quite senior official level.
The same is true of defence. The incredibly effective American commitment to European defence which so often seems to be forgotten by those who are of a neutralist persuasion is matched by Europe's own commitment. Of the armed forces in Europe some 90 per cent. of the armoured divisions in NATO are European in origin, and some 80 per cent. of the combat aircraft and some 70 per cent. of the fighting ships are provided by Europe. That is right. That is the co-operation that is necessary.
Our relationship is good but, as my hon. Friend rightly emphasised, there is much work to do and always will be. We would also be wrong to expect perfection because of the differences between us, some of which were touched upon in a significant article which appeared in The Economist on 21 January and which I detect from his remarks my hon. Friend also read. Its author pointed out:
The American view of the world is different from the European view, because the American's history has made them into a different sort of people.
He refers to the strong moral element which often appears in American political attitudes, domestic attitudes and in terms of international diplomacy in the management of their foreign affairs. At one stage he describes it as "moralising romanticism."
I do not suggest that I necessarily accept that definition, but there is no doubt that we are different. So, too, there are differences between the British, the French and the Germans because of historical relationships and backgrounds. That does not mean that we cannot and will not continue to co-operate effectively with our European partners, just as we co-operate effectively with our American partners. To expect total harmony of view, harmony of perception and a total identity of interest is a trap into which many of us fall.
Most Government supporters do not fall into the other trap of attempting to drive wedges between the members of the Western Alliance. My hon. Friend referred to the aim of Soviet policy being
to convert American's allies to neturalism.
We see many manifestations of that policy, and it must continue to be one of the tasks of Governments and of all right-thinking people to combat that effort. It must also be the task of us all to combat not neutralism in itself in the sense that we all wish for peace—we combat neutralism but we are not against peace. We are against the subversion of the concept of peace by those who would sacrifice western values and interests.
We have a powerful task because of the growth of the unilateralist movement which, although checked at the polling booths, continues to have a significant impact and stimulation is given to it by many sections of the media.
When we talk about developing and maintaining Anglo-American relations, we have to remember that this is very much a two-way task by the United States


Government and people and the British Government and people. We must combat those who seek either blindly or perhaps even maliciously to sow dissension and use misrepresentation to damage those very important relations.
I refer especially to that most vital issue of all, the issue of peace, the management of our relations with the Soviet Union and arms control. It is saddening and alarming to witness the denigration of the efforts of the United States Administration—I quote the words of President Reagan on 16 January—
to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the Soviet Union.
President Reagan went on to say that:
If the Soviet Government wants peace, then there will be peace.
The reaction of too many people, however, including Opposition Members, has been to dismiss that statement as a mere electoral propaganda ploy for the presidential election.

Mr. Donald Anderson: rose—

Mr. Whitney: I shall give way in a moment. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to consider the comments of the Leader of the Opposition whose forays into foreign affairs seem even more alarming than his forays into domestic affairs. On 17 January he said of President Reagan's speech:
I do think it's more intended to influence potential Democratic voters in the United States than to influence the Kremlin.

Mr. Anderson: Would not even the Minister harbour some scepticism about that speech bearing in mind the fact that it followed the speech about the powers of darkness and the evil system in the Soviet Union? Does the Minister not have some reluctance to accept President Reagan's speech at its face value in view of the surprising change of attitude that has occurred in such a short time?

Mr. Whitney: I greatly welcome the hon. Gentleman's intervention as it entirely proves my point. The Opposition deliberately ignore the policies and clear statements of the United States Administration. For example, as long ago as last June Mr. Shultz said:
we have a fundamental common interest in the avoidance of war. This common interest impels us to work toward a relationship between our nations that can lead to a safer world for all mankind.

We have heard nothing about that from the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) or the Leader of the Opposition. The Opposition ignore such statements but, as the hon. Gentleman has just done, pick up examples merely to sow dissension. Those are precisely the efforts which we must combat as they do much harm to our joint endeavours.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East has just returned from El Salvador and Nicaragua. In a curiously entitled epic—"Kissinger's Kingdom?"—he ignores the efforts which the United States made, during the first 18 months of the Sandinista Government, to offer about $200 million in aid. There was not a word of that in the 80 pages of the hon. Gentleman's work.

Mr. Anderson: Does the Minister do Anglo-American relations any good by adopting a tone of totally mute acquiescence in whatever the United States Government do? For example, the Central Intelligence Agency is at this moment financing and arming counter-revolutionaries on the borders of Nicaragua. They are trying to destabilise a Government which, on any estimate, enjoys the support of a great majority of the population. The CIA is doing that against all the canons of international law. There has not been the merest peep of protest from the British Government about what the United States Government are doing with regard to the Contras.

Mr. Whitney: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening he would have heard me say that there is by no means a totality of interest between the British and American Governments or any other nation. However, his selective use of examples gives the lie to his attitude. That is the danger which we must face. Those who are interested in good Anglo-American relations understand that.
I confirm my hon. Friend's assertion that Britain has a role to play in developing the relationship. It remains an essential element of British policy, just as does the Atlantic Alliance which has served us well for a long time. Despite the attacks of people such as the hon. Member for Swansea, East, it remains and will continue to remain a cornerstone of British foreign policy under the leadership of the Conservative Government.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes past Three o'clock.